By Cliff Rold

We’re going to run out of superlatives eventually.  Great is no longer a superlative.  Great is a matter of fact, a truism.  New WBO Welterweight titlist and reigning World Jr. Welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 KO) is great.

Great in this time. 

Great in any time.

Eventually he will lose again as he continues.  It happens to everyone who pushes at the seams of what should be, can be, accomplished.  But right now, Pacquiao is in a zone few get to in the sport and he’s marking his place among the finest who ever did it.  Where he ultimately falls will be to history to decide, but that his name won’t look unnatural in the vicinity of the Canzoneri’s, Duran’s and Armstrong’s is easy to predict at this point.

On a night when he didn’t even appear to have his best stuff, Pacquiao took some big shots and dealt bigger ones, warring with WBO Welterweight titlist Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KO) until Cotto just ran out of war (if not warrior).  It was a display of pride and class from the defeated, the latest piece of an increasingly rich history for the victor.    

Let’s go to the report card. 

Grades
Pre: Speed – Cotto B; Pacquiao A+/Post: Cotto B+; Pacquiao A
Pre: Power – Cotto B+; Pacquiao B+ /Post: Cotto B+; Pacquiao A-
Pre: Defense – Cotto B-; Pacquiao B+/Post: Same
Pre: Intangibles – Cotto B+; Pacquiao A/Post: A for both

Pacquiao is renowned for his speed of hand but he wasn’t quite the blaze he always is on Saturday night.  He looked just a hair slower, more deliberate, than he did against Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton. 

That was still far too fast for Cotto by the end of the night.

Cotto had a lot to do with any marginal slowing of Pacquiao.  It was a given he would hit Pacquiao, and hit him with harder shots than Pacquiao had experienced to date.  Arguments about whether Cotto was damaged after the Margarito fight were answered in part by his ability to gut out a win versus Joshua Clottey over the summer.  On Saturday he showed further recovery, firing a quick jab as part of an offensive sharpness early on.  He was making Pacquiao work; making him think.

Pacquiao answered with his latest new dimension.  Going to the ropes in brief spots of homage to Muhammad Ali, Pacquiao lured Cotto in, holding his hands up high and tight, catching his breath before spinning away and letting loose with both hands. 

His usual dimensions kicked in off the spins. 

In exchanges towards ring center, Cotto’s willingness to trade got him dropped quickly in the third, badly in the fourth.  There was a question of just how much power Pacquiao brings specifically to Welterweight.  It can be answered by noting that world class Welterweights Shane Mosley, Zab Judah, Carlos Quintana, and Joshua Clottey all landed big shots and never dropped Cotto.  Margarito laid a beating but Cotto took knees late in that fight.  In round four on Saturday, Pacquiao scored a clean, single shot knockdown and, with a few more seconds, might well have done more than that.

Perhaps most impressive, Pacquiao showed new dimensions in terms of his chin.  Cotto landed some real heat with the left, both as a hook and an uppercut.  Manny was rocked back a few times, but he took those shots and kept his senses.  Cotto has never been a man of concrete chin but showed resolve and a fighter’s pride, refusing to allow the fight to be stopped in the corner and trying his best to fight back through the first six and fighting to hear the final bell from there.

Pacquiao also has developed a control of his offense he once lacked.  He still gets wild occasionally, but the fighter he’s been from the first Erik Morales rematch forward is more balanced and he’s eyes wide open at almost all times.  It allows him to choose his offense better.  That’s recent history; look up his title wins at 112 and 122 lbs.  In terms of displayed skill, it’s like watching a different fighter altogether.

For a full recap of the action, check out T.K. Stewart’s excellent coverage at https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=23472   

Looking Ahead

There are obvious issues to discuss in the road forward, but before those are addressed let’s ponder the future of Miguel Cotto.  Even in losing, he once again did the tradition of Puerto Rican excellence proud and stated after the bout he will continue.  If he does, there are still some solid fights he can make in the division after some earned rest. 

When he returns from his suspension for an attempted glove loading against Shane Mosley, a rematch with Antonio Margarito (37-6, 27 KO) would likely be the biggest money available to Cotto.  Did Margarito have ‘heavy’ hands against Cotto?  The Mexico-Puerto Rico rivalry is hot enough, but the possibility Cotto was cheated in his first defeat adds an additional scope. 

There will also be the winner of January’s pending WBA title showdown between “Sugar” Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KO) and WBC titlist Andre Berto (25-0, 19 KO). 

Mosley will likely be short a dance partner if he defeats Berto and would probably love to avenge his Cotto loss, particularly because he’s never avenged a loss before.  Berto would need more name recognition and name value added to his resume.  A win over either would restore luster to Cotto; a loss might tell him it’s time to step away.  Cotto has consistently faced the best at Welterweight and can be expected to continue to do so.

Okay, now the big question: when?

As in when does the world get Pacquiao versus former lineal Welterweight champion (and five-division title winner) Floyd Mayweather Jr. (40-0, 25 KO).

The guess here is the fight will be next and no later than the summer.  There is so much money involved it would be asinine if the fight doesn’t come together.  Over the next few weeks, maybe months, there will be lots of rhetoric, public negotiating posture, and other nonsense which can logically end one place.

It ends with names on the dotted line.

If it does not, something has gone horribly wrong.  This should, promoted properly, be the biggest fight in the sport since Ray Leonard-Marvin Hagler. 

THE fight just doesn’t come along every day.

A win would elevate Mayweather’s legacy.  It would send Pacquiao’s into orbit.  The Cotto and Hatton wins this year have already begun that process and probably allowed him to Usain Bolt the field as Fighter of the Decade. 

Hatton was the presumed larger man in May; Cotto was visibly bigger in the ring Saturday night.  While he hit the scales at 145, he might have been closer to 160 at fight time.  Pacquiao’s speed and skill trumped Cotto’s size and skill and was evidence of why it was so unnecessary to even marginally risk the fullness of accomplishment by forcing Cotto to make a catchweight.

With Mayweather, add another factor.  Mayweather would have an advantage in size, maybe a minor disadvantage in speed he could offset with height and reach advantages, and a defensive skill set Pacquiao has never seen.  Conversely, Pacquiao offers a southpaw offensive storm Mayweather has not seen.

Pacquiao is an all-time great whether he beats Mayweather or not.  A record four lineal world titles at Flyweight, Featherweight, Jr. Lightweight, and Jr. Welterweight along with major belts at Jr. Featherweight, Lightweight and Welterweight is only one indication as to why. 

In all seven divisions where he claimed some title accolade, he can only be caught arguably cherry picking once in the seven.  In order of titles won, he defeated Chatchai Sasakul, Lehlo Ledwaba, Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez, David Diaz, Hatton and now Cotto.

Only Diaz was considered reasonably less than the best fighter in his class. 

Ledwaba had a case as the best at 122 at the time; Cotto was no worse than number two at Welterweight.  Everyone else was the consensus best man Pacquiao could face and only Marquez went the distance.  Two knockouts of Mexican great Erik Morales, against a competitive decision loss, in non-title affairs with Erik Morales further buff Pacquiao’s resume.

That Mayweather and Pacquiao are reasonably within weight of each other is astonishing.  In 1998, a 21-year old Mayweather and a 19-year old Pacquiao were 18 lbs. apart, at 112 and 130.  The closest they have been on the scale while both were active since was in 2001 when Pacquiao was at 122 and Mayweather was finishing at 130.  When Mayweather fought last in 2007 before his brief retirement, Pacquiao had only come as far as 130 while Mayweather held the Welterweight crown, a seventeen lb. spread.

And yet here they are.   Mayweather will likely enter the favored man.  He should. 

It’s the sort of challenge legends are made of. 

Or, in this case, the sort which can make a legend even larger.     

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com