As nauseating already are the prognoses, analyses and predictions on the November 14 Pacquiao-Cotto mega-fight, I still can not resist the temptation of pounding my keyboard to add yet another dimension to the previews and expected outcome of this year’s biggest pay per view event.
My neighbors and fellow bloggers on this website may find this article already an overkill. But because by instinct we are predators and warriors, I will beg for their indulgence and yours.
Saturday night’s (Sunday morning in most of Asia) big event has the promise of rivaling, if not surpassing, the monumental and epic clash of two boxing titans more than 25 years ago.
In three action-filled rounds never seen live before, Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns went after each other’s throats like lions defending his and/or seizing each other’s pride.
There are some uncanny similarities between them, on the one hand, and Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Angel Cotto, on the other hand.
Like Marvin Hagler, Manny Pacquiao is a southpaw just as Miguel Angel Cotto and Thomas Hearns fight in orthodox stance. Cotto is however a natural southpaw who fights like an orthodox fighter.
When they clashed, both Hagler at 31 and the then 26-year-old Hearns were at the peak of their boxing careers.
Hagler was the defending undisputed champion in the unified middleweight division and has never boxed below the 154-pound limit.
Hearns, on the other hand, started his boxing career at the super lightweight and fought as heavy as a 192-pound cruiserweight during the twilight of his career.
Both suffered defeats before they met one fateful evening in April, 1984.
Both were brawlers and heavy handed.
It was the ‘hellest’, albeit the greatest, three rounds of boxing savagery and fistic mayhem of all time.
Hearns drew first blood by buckling Hagler’s knees in the first round. But Hagler bounced back to administer his own brand of sadistic punishment. In the words of announcer Barry Tompkins, the first round was perhaps the “most brutal even rounds” in the history of boxing.
It did not end up there. In the next round both fighters jumped at each other’s throats like men whose wives were coveted by the man at the opposite corner.
In the third round, with his forehead bloodied by a cut, Hagler unleashed a devastating right hook at the temple of Hearns and followed it up with thundering right cross. Hearns collapsed like a heap of timber and that ended one of the greatest devastating fights in the history of the sport.
Pacquiao and Cotto are on the cusp of duplicating that feat if both of them stick to what they are good, nay, excellent at – running roughshod against their opponents. Both are aggressive punchers although their styles are markedly contrasting.
Manny likes to overpower his opponents with the combination of speed and power punching.
Cotto goes after his prey with aplomb and brute aggression.
When two freight trains collide head on, expect bedlam and devastation.
But that may not happen. Both fighters knew they are each capable of putting the lights out on their opponent.
Both Pacquiao and Cotto have in the past displayed remarkable ability to adjust to what their opponents bring to the table or, should I say, ring.
With both still capable of fighting 10 more championship bouts ahead of them, they know a devastating knockout loss will deprive either of them from amassing more wealth to their already fattened coffers.
This fight, unlike the one fought by Hagler and Hearns more than two decades ago, will add new meaning to what should pound for pound fighters possess – the skill and faculty to use their power and prowess to perfection.
Both Pacquiao and Cotto will have to be nothing but perfect on Saturday evening to win this fight.
But when one gets cut and bleeds in the opening rounds – either by a clash of heads, as is common when two contrasting fighting stances go after each other, or by a legitimate punch – throw away those carefully planned strategies and tactics.
It will be a phone booth brawl once one of them smells and sees blood.
Ah, I cannot wait for it to happen.
