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Philippines, 12 May 2024 |
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Getting Real With Manny Pacquiao By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Wed, 02 Oct 2019  Ideally, following age old tradition and ways of evaluating worth of fighters, Manny Pacquiao should still have been not only the number one welterweight but the top pound for pound boxer in the world today. But boxing scribes in America, chiefly those in the Ring Magazine with the exception of a few including historian Al Bernstein seem to be living in a fantasy world or in extended state of denial of reality. This is not without plausible explanations. Many of these self professed boxing experts grew up and started their craft in 80s and 90s, a period when American yuppies were very much into comic book as well as cinematic superheroes. Like Ring editor in chief Dougie Fischer who would at times interject some narratives about Wolverine and other of his favorite comic book characters in his regular Mailbag column. Hence many of them are liable to be impressed by what to them would be outwordly skills and talents of certain fighters as Vasil Lomachenko whose aliases of The Matrix and Hi Tech they have inspired and wholeheartedly embraced. 
Lomachenko drops Campbell. This could be the reason they deemed Loma as the best pound for pound fighter of the planet despite his comparatively leaner resume compared to say, Pacquiao, Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin. In fairness, Pacquiao also acquired and became exceedingly famous for his monicker as Pacman because of this tendency and trend to juxtapose fantasy to real life persons and events in sports. But Pacquiao not only earned but also virtually created his Pacman persona by the manner he gobbled up one ring title after another while leaving a wide swathe of destruction in his wake across eight weight divisions. Stopped only on his track by another comicbook-like or cinematic character with contrasting hero-villain personality in Floyd Money Mayweather whose appetite for amassing green bucks is matched only by his overblown self admiration. However this archnemesis has retired and now content himself with being a producer and promoter together with another of boxing's enigmatic, sometimes pictured as sinister character, Al Haymon. That should have left Pacquiao as the top man of boxing, notwithstanding a minor bump by way of a highly controversial loss to an Australian ogre Jeff Horn who used (and was allowed) every dirty tricks to pull off the upset before approving OZ fans. But they have nonetheless decided to write Pacquiao off as old and all washed up, an aging, faded fighter better left to ride into the sunset as his illustrious predecessors like Sugar Rays Robinson and Leonard did in the past. But then the script did not go as they expected. Pacquiao essayed another of his epic comeback gobbling another world title by knocking out La Maquina Lucas Matthysse, defending it convincingly against The Problem Adrien Broner and unifying against the dreaded Keith 'One Time' Thurman. 
Pacquiao drops Thurman. It is a highly problematic situation indeed that they found themselves in as unlike those aforementioned old greats, Manny like "old, supposed washed and faded ex champs" as George Foreman and Bernard Hopkins proved to have enough gas and still good engine to not only win but reign as world champion for the nth time. Incidentally, the supposed welterweight number one Errol 'The Truth' Spence who had been calling out Pacquiao for a showdown has now changed his tune and would not want to have anything to do with him in the meantime after going to hell and back against Shawn Showtime Porter, Manny's former sparring partner. But hard as it is to ignore the elephant in the room, most have preferred to stay still in denial mode. Hence, I doubt it if there will be a change in the current welterweight ranking where Manny is third behind Spence and Terrence Crawford, the division bogeyman or the pound for pound lorded over, undeservedly I hasten to add, by Hi Tech Loma where Manny is hugging the basement. American boxing media has got to get a grip with reality and has to be fair and real with Pacquiao. They have been justifying their lofty rankings of Spence and Loma respectively based mainly on their passing the so called "eye test" in their recent results and performances more than their overall track record. 
Spence drops Porter. But aside from proven track record, Manny also passed the eye test especially in his last fight versus Thurman who has beaten Porter more impressively than Spence and also Danny Garcia whom Errol has picked to fight next instead of Manny. Given this long going bias against him, Manny would be much better off pursuing the much awaited super rematch versus Floyd or a lucrative fight in the Middle East versus the still popular Amir Khan. Either way, Manny stands to earn his usual multi million dollar purse than taking chances against any of those guys whose biggest pay was earned fighting against him with Thurman getting home with $5 million as against his more than twenty million buckaroos. He can also leave Loma in his innocence bliss as the so called pound for pound best fighter but only earning so so in fight purse. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.  |
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