On Saturday night Manny Pacquiao will fight Juan Manuel Marzuez in Las Vegas, and if Pacquiao wins, he’s established that he’s the best fighter in the world among those lighter than welterweight champ Floyd Mayweather.
By that point, it might be time for the 130-pound Pacquiao to put on some weight and take on a bigger boxer. But who would that boxer be? One possibility is Oscar De La Hoya.
Boxing broadcaster Larry Merchant calls a Pacquiao-De La Hoya match “somewhere between a possibility and a probability.” It would certainly be a profitable fight, as Pacquiao is the world’s most exciting boxer and De La Hoya is the most popular. But could it work?
Assuming that the fight is at somewhere around the 150-pound range, I think the fight itself would be interesting: Pacquiao is a better fighter than De La Hoya, but forcing Pacquiao to move up to De La Hoya’s weight class would negate a lot of Pacquiao’s speed advantage.
There’s also the issue of whether De La Hoya, who has become the best businessman in sports with his Golden Boy Promotions, would want to get into the ring with Pacquiao, who is promoted by Bob Arum. That could be a stumbling block, but probably not a huge one: The photo shows De La Hoya next to Pacquiao prior to Pacquiao’s fight with Marco Antonio Barrera. That fight was co-promoted by Arum (obscured on the left in the photo) and De La Hoya. They’d work out another co-promotion if the money was right.
De La Hoya has a fight scheduled for May and then a rematch against Mayweather on tap for later in the year. After that, he might very well retire and focus on his promotion business full-time. But if he does keep fighting after the Mayweather rematch, there’s no one I’d rather see him take on than Pacquiao.
