For Manny Pacquiao, Eight is (More Than) Enough
By Cliff Rold
The Great Manny Pacquiao.
That’s capital “G” great.
Few fighters, still in their prime, could be genuinely identified as the “The Great…” anything. The Filipino icon is among those few. If he lost every fight left in his career from this Saturday forward, Pacquiao’s accomplishments over the last decade and change would outweigh those defeats.
This has been a fistic era marked with too much inactivity and too little risk. Pacquiao has overcome most of the objections.
A large part of the Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO) profile is his collection of titles. Those titles illustrate the weight span he has traveled. He is the only fighter in the history of boxing to win the lineal World Championship of four different weight classes. He is the only fighter in history to stake a claim to any significant title (defined for this era as lineal, WBC, WBA, IBF, or WBO) in seven different divisions.
His first title, the lineal and WBC throne at Flyweight (112 lbs.), came by knockout in December 1998. The WBO Welterweight (147 lb.) belt he wears now, was earned with a stoppage of Miguel Cotto in November 2009.
This Saturday, against former Welterweight titlist Antonio Margarito (38-6, 27 KO), Pacquiao will go for a belt in an eighth division.
Outside of some shameless television advertising doing what it is supposed to do, it’s hard to find much excitement about this potentially looming accomplishment.
Good.
Given where Pacquiao has come from on the scale, and all that Margarito got done in the 2000’s at Welterweight (regardless of the Shane Mosley wrap controversy), defeating Margarito could be impressive on its own. The belt on the line is anything but.
Should Pacquiao defeat Margarito for the vacant WBC 154 lb. belt this weekend, it would be the most hollow of all his title wins.
How so?
First off, this fight for a so-called major 154 lb. title is not being contested between two fighters with any sort of established credentials in the division. Pacquiao has never fought above Welterweight.
Margarito has fought above Welterweight only three times since winning the WBO Welterweight belt against Antonio Diaz in 2001, posting two wins against a single, narrow loss to Daniel Santos for the WBO belt in 2004.
That 2004 contest was the only Jr. Middleweight tilt involving Margarito until the “Tijuana Tornado” returned from over a year of suspension with a win over Roberto Garcia in May of this year. Somehow, getting caught trying to load his gloves, being suspended, and winning one fight at Jr. Middleweight was enough for the WBC to deem Margarito the number one contender.
This will be the first time one of Pacquiao’s title wins could come with a vacant belt on the line. To date, the least acclaimed of his title wins came at 135 lbs. There is no questioning that Margarito will be a tougher test than WBC Lightweight titlist David Diaz was in 2008, but Diaz could at least say he lost a belt he earned in the ring. This belt is basically just waiting for Pacquiao to pick it up if he can.
Why would the WBC sanction a title fight at Jr. Middleweight between two fighters with no credentials there? Maybe because…
Manny i$ money.
Last week, in the sort of comical news that makes one wish the Daily Show covered boxing, WBC President Jose Sulaiman’s resignation…wait, never mind…moment was reportedly triggered by his desire to generate more revenues at Heavyweight by allowing Vitali Klitschko an optional title defense before a mandatory.
Given the purses Pacquiao commands, attaching a title to one of his fights means a handsome sanctioning fee. It would be hard to imagine the most recent purses of Saul Alvarez, Alfredo Angulo, and Ryan Rhodes (the three men rated behind Margarito by the WBC) generating as much in sanctioning fees as a single Pacquiao outing. No one has come right out and said the sanctioning of this fight is about the cash, but the profit motive is certainly there.
So, hey, never fought at Jr. Middleweight? No problem.
Don’t even really want to fight at Jr. Middleweight? That’s no problem either.
This weekend’s 154 lb. title fight will, of course, not be happening at a maximum of 154. A catchweight of 150 lbs. has been agreed to by the fighters. It will, if Pacquiao wins, mark the second title in a row he has picked up at a catchweight. The last one, forcing Miguel Cotto to weigh in no higher than 145 lbs., was at least in range of the Welterweight division limit.
The problem for Saturday is that this catchweight is also in range of the Welterweight limit, in so much as it is closer to Welterweight’s 147 lb. ceiling than it is to Jr.
Middleweight’s 154.
Catchweights, in title fights or otherwise, are nothing new. They can be used to level the playing field, to abuse a larger man who needs the money against a star, and/or, in this era of day-before-the-fight weigh-in’s, to limit the amount of post scale weight a fighter might put on.
In Margarito’s case, the catchweight isn’t likely to affect his performance. He’s barely touched Jr. Middleweight and isn’t being forced all the way back to Welterweight. This is not quite Ray Leonard forcing then-WBC Light Heavyweight titlist Donny LaLonde to 168 lbs. The Super Middleweight belt on the line that night though was every bit as shallow as the belt on the line this weekend.
The point is not lost that Pacquiao’s catchweight stipulations are targeted. Joshua Clottey? No catchweight needed in March of this year. Cotto and Margarito? Fighters who appear to be a serious threat before the bell rings?
Different story.
Pacquiao and his team are sending a signal. The sky is not the limit. There is no rational reason to expect it to be. Pacquiao, the Great Manny Pacquiao, is still only human if not quite as human as his peers.
That doesn’t mean every fights needs a trophy, every trophy has merit, or that every title deserves celebration.
Sometime in 2011, the dream of a Superfight with Floyd Mayweather will occur again. The two of them have made clear they are the best in the world at Welterweight. Mayweather can claim the lineal honors of the class. If Pacquiao can defeat Mayweather, he will have staked a very real claim to the Welterweight throne and added an unprecedented fifth lineal title.
That will be merit worth celebrating.
This Saturday should have settled for just being what looks like one hell of a fight.
Weekly Ledger
But wait, there’s more…
ShoBox: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=32563
Lopez, Johnson Win: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=32591
Ratings Update: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=32618
24/7 Pt. 3: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=32676
Picks of the Week: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=32677
Cliff’s Notes… Report cards and picks for the Superfight and more will be on their way come Friday...Yes, the interim 122 lb. belt on the line between Guillermo Rigondeaux and Ricardo Cordoba on the Pacquiao-Margarito undercard is also silly…Holyfield-Tua? Seriously? I’d still watch it...Will Auburn or Oregon be the team that slips to let TCU or Boise into the national title game?...Marco Huck-Denis Lebedev at Cruiserweight is one of the best fights U.S. fight fans don’t know they’d want to see.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel, the Yahoo Pound for Pound voting panel, and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com