TO be a formidable foe of Manny Pacquiao nowadays, one has to be a Juan Manuel Marquez, Joan Guzman, Nate Campbell or Ricky Hatton.
But a Humberto Soto facing Pacquiao?
Yes the Mexican Soto may be a Bob Arum boy but in scanning the scenery of lightweight boxing these days there is no decent foe available, schedule wise, that can give Pacquiao a stern challenge.
The fighter?s mentioned as Pacquiao?s best challengers are all booked before the end of this year.
Marquez is set to vie for the interim WBO lightweight crown of Joel Casamayor in September, Campbell will stake his regular WBO and WBA crowns against Guzman also in September while Hatton will try to snatch the IBF light welterweight crown from American Paulie Malignaggi sometime in November.
In all likelihood Arum wants to keep Pacquiao busy as he knows that the Filipino legend is always sure to ensconce himself at the Wild Card Gym under famed trainer Freddie Roach once there is a fight schedule.
For this reason making Soto as Pacquiao?s opponent will be a worthy ring activity for the Pacman before the year ends.
What about Edwin Valero?
Many got to heave a sigh of relief upon reading the sports section of Manila Standard/Today that Soto will be Pacquiao?s next foe instead of Valero.
Valero, despite his supposed knockout rage will instead end up being gobbled by Pacquiao?s powerful blows made more lethal with its much-improved hand speed. In short, it could be an easy, insignificant night for the Pacman vs. an untested junior lightweight Valero.
As for Soto, he may not be in the class of a Marquez, Campbell or Guzman but he is definitely way better, skill wise, compared to Jorge Solis, Oscar Larios and even David Diaz.
One more thing: He is a Mexican
Also, don?t be surprised if the astute Arum centers on Soto?s vicious 7th round stoppage of Pacquiao?s kid brother Bobby June of last year in promoting the Pacquiao-Soto setto.
At least Pacquiao-Soto will have a good selling point compared to Pacquiao-Valero which has no point in staging it, at least for this year.
*****
A few days ago I received an email from someone who identified himself as ?Beastie Boy? of the celebrated Pacland Forum and gave me a ?lecture? on the ancestry of the Featherweight belt.
Here?s the first part of his extensive email.
?Dear Dennis,
When I listened to your program, it seems like you have no clue as to what a lineal boxing champion means.
So I will give you a short lesson. The world “lineal” is defined as “of direct lineage or in a direct line from an ancestor”. In the case of lineal boxing world champions, specifically in the featherweight division, its ancestry is from a the line of true, undisputed featherweight champions dating back all the way back to Torpedo Billy Murphy (1890-1891) then to Henry Armstrong (1937-1938) all the way up to Naseem Hamed Naseem Hamed (1998 – 2001) then to Marco Antonio Barerra from 2001 to Nov 2003 until Pacman beat him and became featherweight world champion as well.
Check this site and see for yourself:
http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/feather.htm
Hopefully you will have a better appreciation of what a lineal boxing champion means and recognize Manny Pacquiao as a world champion in the featherweight division as well, thus making it 5 instead of 4.
I have been saying this over and over and over agaib: Pacman is a 5 division champion with 4 belts from sanctioning bodies!!!!!!!!!!” *****
Now here is my answer to someone who wants to be my “professor” in boxing.
I went direct to the point and told him about the real issue: Pacquiao?s “Featherweight Dilemma”.
Let’s not go back further and check out 1979 champion Danny “Little Red” Lopez as mentioned in cyberboxingzone link “Beastie Boy” sent me.
First question: How was Lopez declared as “successor” to Alexis Arguello who vacated the Featherweight throne in 1977 to move up in weight?
Where’s the lineage between Lopez and Arguello? (This was not included in my reply the same day but will anyone inform me if Lopez and Arguello are related so as to give credence to that ?Lineal? thing?)
In 1979, the then-WBC champion Lopez fought three times against Roberto Castanon, Mike Ayala and Jose Caba. Who are they? Were those fights enough to declare Lopez “lineal champion”? How about Eusebio Pedroza who was the WBA Featherweight champion at that time?
I am not saying that Pedroza should have been declared champion. Being the top two fighters Pedroza and Lopez should have fought to declare the next “lineal champion” at that time and a worthy, indisuputable successor to Arguello. (Where’s the “To be the man you gotta beat the man” mantra?)
Yes, the great Pedroza was declared “lineal champ” in 1983 and it was meant to be as history is now telling us. The thing is Lopez can lay claim to that 1979 title if only he faced and defeated Pedroza which never happened.
You think the decision to award the “lineal title” to Lopez was not tainted with politics knowing that Pedroza was a great champion in 1979?
If you ask me, the supposed “lineal Featherweight champion” already went kaput when it was handed to Lopez “on a silver platter” back in 1979.
(Note: Pedroza is enshrined as Hall-of-Famer of the widely recognized International Boxing Hall of Fame while Lopez is also a hall-of-famer – in California boxing.)
As for Beastie Boy?s post that Manny Pacquiao should be called a “five-division champion with four belts from sanctioning bodies”, I guess that phrase will do more harm than good to Michael Buffer’s ailing throat and elegant intro, right? (Unless Buffer asks for an overtime pay)
