LAS VEGAS – The editor-in-chief of Ring Magazine, known as the Bible of Boxing, has given Manny Pacquiao his full blessing.
Nigel Collins, who joined the magazine in 1972 and became editor-in-chief in 1985, was at Friday?s official weigh-in for Pacquiao?s exciting rematch with Marco Antonio Barrera.
He spoke briefly of today?s fight and made no secret of his faith in Pacquiao.
?Honestly, I?d say that Manny?s gonna stop him again,? said Collins, who in his high school days wrote book reports and term papers for other students to earn gas money for himself.
?Barrera has pride and he?s got skills. You know he?s gonna give it everything that he has. But I don?t think it?s gonna be enough. Mother nature is against him,? said Collins of the Mexican who turns 34 in January.
?There?s an old saying that all great fighters have one great fight left. But I don?t think it?s gonna be enough,? he added.
Collins remembered the first time Pacquiao fought Barrera and scored a sensational 11th round victory that pushed the Filipino to the top of the charts.
?I know that Barrera had a lot of problems heading into the first fight against Pacquiao. But all fighters have problems,? he said.
?And if you look at their careers since then, Manny has gotten better and Barrera has not. In fact, he?s gone back a little bit,? Collins told a couple of Pinoy scribes.
But with a great fighter like Barrera, he continued, anything is possible.
It?s just that the odds may be too much for him to conquer.
Barrera, everybody knows, has retirement on his mind, while Pacquiao has even bigger fights up ahead.
?It seems to me that we have a great fighter who?s on the way down and a fighter who maybe has not reached his peak yet,? said boxing?s editor-in-chief.
