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Just going through a recent thread about Pacquiao and how one guy thinks he is top 5 all time, personally I don't agree with him, I'd have him top 20 all time. Having said that there were some fools who said he should be closer to 50 and may be not even top 50 and some of the reasons touted include:
Manny hasn't always been the recognised no. 1 in a division
There are too many world championships now
Manny has been KO
Manny has used catchweights, etc etc etc
Fact is, all of these issues of plagued fighters as great as the likes of Armstrong and Leonard plus countless others. I'll go through a few examples here.
First off, lets start off with the kind of multi-division world championships, one Henry Armstrong. In terms of knockouts, 2 of his 21 losses came via stoppage, one of them in his very first fights. Manny had 2 similar early career KOs, although none of them came against an opponent s bad as Al Lovino, who had only 15 bouts and had lost 5 of them, 3 were draws or NCs. Add to that Armstrong's rather dubious efforts at winning a middleweight "world" championship, which came against a man who was only recognised as champion in the state of California...yep, it's pretty similar to beating someone who held a portion of the LW title in the modern age.
At the time and throughout history, that has been billed as Armstrong trying to win a world title in a 4th division when in fact he was only trying to win a portion of a title, worse than any alphabet title since it was only recognised by one state in one country.
So that's already struck off two rather ridiculous claims by Manny haters. The one that often niggles away at peoples tender psyche is the whole catchweight ridiculousness. One was a catchweight Oscar dictated, so that he could have a mega fight with a guy he was supposed to destroy. That backfired.
The other 2 catchweights came against Cotto (2lbs) and Margarito. The Margy one is rather ridiculous, the Mexican had spent his whole career at 147 and was asked to moved up to 150 and fight against Manny for a portion of the 154 crown. I actually found the world title on offer utterly ****** but the fact that Manny was fighting a guy so much bigger in size and the way he handled him was extremely impressive. This was a cw which surely benefited Margy? Allowing him to come in bigger and stronger than ever before? Sadly Margy was a done fighter by then. But back to the issue of catchweights.
Everyone from Joe Gans, Joe Walcott and Battling Nelson have used catchweights, most of them in title fights for championships in a different weight division...just like what Manny did. Why is their greatness solidified yet Manny is vilified? The answer is simple, most boxing "fans" don't know the history of the sport they claim to love.
Just to conclude, this isn't simply a thread with regards to Manny Pacquiao, this is about any fighter of the modern era whose greatness is called into doubt because of what is perceived of the black and white age of boxing.
May be we should learn more about the sport before we speak .
Manny hasn't always been the recognised no. 1 in a division
There are too many world championships now
Manny has been KO
Manny has used catchweights, etc etc etc
Fact is, all of these issues of plagued fighters as great as the likes of Armstrong and Leonard plus countless others. I'll go through a few examples here.
First off, lets start off with the kind of multi-division world championships, one Henry Armstrong. In terms of knockouts, 2 of his 21 losses came via stoppage, one of them in his very first fights. Manny had 2 similar early career KOs, although none of them came against an opponent s bad as Al Lovino, who had only 15 bouts and had lost 5 of them, 3 were draws or NCs. Add to that Armstrong's rather dubious efforts at winning a middleweight "world" championship, which came against a man who was only recognised as champion in the state of California...yep, it's pretty similar to beating someone who held a portion of the LW title in the modern age.
At the time and throughout history, that has been billed as Armstrong trying to win a world title in a 4th division when in fact he was only trying to win a portion of a title, worse than any alphabet title since it was only recognised by one state in one country.
So that's already struck off two rather ridiculous claims by Manny haters. The one that often niggles away at peoples tender psyche is the whole catchweight ridiculousness. One was a catchweight Oscar dictated, so that he could have a mega fight with a guy he was supposed to destroy. That backfired.
The other 2 catchweights came against Cotto (2lbs) and Margarito. The Margy one is rather ridiculous, the Mexican had spent his whole career at 147 and was asked to moved up to 150 and fight against Manny for a portion of the 154 crown. I actually found the world title on offer utterly ****** but the fact that Manny was fighting a guy so much bigger in size and the way he handled him was extremely impressive. This was a cw which surely benefited Margy? Allowing him to come in bigger and stronger than ever before? Sadly Margy was a done fighter by then. But back to the issue of catchweights.
Everyone from Joe Gans, Joe Walcott and Battling Nelson have used catchweights, most of them in title fights for championships in a different weight division...just like what Manny did. Why is their greatness solidified yet Manny is vilified? The answer is simple, most boxing "fans" don't know the history of the sport they claim to love.
Just to conclude, this isn't simply a thread with regards to Manny Pacquiao, this is about any fighter of the modern era whose greatness is called into doubt because of what is perceived of the black and white age of boxing.
May be we should learn more about the sport before we speak .
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