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By Brent Matteo Alderson - Not to diminish Manny Pacquiao’s accomplishment, he’s a first ballot hall-of-famer and the kind of fighter that would have been great in any era, but Oscar De La Hoya was dead at the weight. Like the vast majority of observers, Oscar thought that making 147 pounds was his biggest obstacle and that walking through Pacquiao was a mere formality and didn’t foresee how the weight-shift was going to impact his effectiveness.
It was obvious from the outset that most of Oscar’s concentration in camp was on comfortably making the 147 pound limit because throughout the pre-fight hype he seemed pre-occupied with it and by fight-night his head looked too big for his body and his limbs and torso were grotesquely thin. Making the 147 pound limit impacted Oscar much worse than it should have because his team went about the process the entirely wrong way. Instead of coming down to 151 pound and then drying out in order to weigh 147 pounds for about ten minutes like he should have, he actually burned significant amounts of muscle during training which threw his body’s natural equilibrium into disarray and drastically affected his performance.
Professional trainer Henry Ramirez felt that Oscar should have came in much heavier and commented, “I wasn’t surprised that De La Hoya lost because I actually thought Manny had a chance, but I was shocked by how Oscar was so thoroughly dominated. I definitely think it was a mistake for him coming in below 147 pounds. I would have went about making the weight differently and utilized all of the weight allowance that was allocated, but Oscar had a great team behind him and I’m sure that was part of their game plan, but you know the old saying, you spend months trying to make weight and you’re only there for a few moments.” [details]
It was obvious from the outset that most of Oscar’s concentration in camp was on comfortably making the 147 pound limit because throughout the pre-fight hype he seemed pre-occupied with it and by fight-night his head looked too big for his body and his limbs and torso were grotesquely thin. Making the 147 pound limit impacted Oscar much worse than it should have because his team went about the process the entirely wrong way. Instead of coming down to 151 pound and then drying out in order to weigh 147 pounds for about ten minutes like he should have, he actually burned significant amounts of muscle during training which threw his body’s natural equilibrium into disarray and drastically affected his performance.
Professional trainer Henry Ramirez felt that Oscar should have came in much heavier and commented, “I wasn’t surprised that De La Hoya lost because I actually thought Manny had a chance, but I was shocked by how Oscar was so thoroughly dominated. I definitely think it was a mistake for him coming in below 147 pounds. I would have went about making the weight differently and utilized all of the weight allowance that was allocated, but Oscar had a great team behind him and I’m sure that was part of their game plan, but you know the old saying, you spend months trying to make weight and you’re only there for a few moments.” [details]
....funny but true!
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