It’s safe to say that the glory years of boxing have passed and boxing is losing interest from the casual sports fan. Some of the reasons the sport is losing interest is because of the mixed martial arts craze that is spreading throughout the country, and some is because there is no true superstar fighter currently like there has been in the past. Enter Manny Pacquiao. Exciting, action packed and ferocious are just some of the terms used to describe Pacquiao’s fighting style. But can he alone save the sport of boxing?
The sport of boxing has probably lost most of its interest since the demise of “Iron” Mike Tyson. Since Tyson other boxer’s such as Oscar De La Hoya, Lennox Lewis, Roy Jones, JR., Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather, JR., and more have tried to popularize the sport to what it once was. But did they? Apparently not.
In the past we’ve heard stories from our elders about turning on the television set and watching a great heavyweight showdown between two fighters with a group of friends or family. However, boxing doesn’t seem to meet the enjoyment it presented that it did in the past in today’s day in age. In today’s age, football rather than boxing is probably the most popular sport in America, contradictory to baseball being labeled “America’s Past Time,” and the sport in which people gather to both enjoy and watch the most.
Most American sports lovers know that football is an extremely popular sport in American culture. However, some new sports are also beginning to become extremely popular in American culture such as NASCAR and mixed martial arts. Mixed martial arts is currently professional boxing’s biggest competitor. Mixed martial arts, or MMA, has two major organizations which are Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) or PRIDE Fighting Championship’s (PRIDE).
The reason the sport is as popular as it is currently is because of the style of fighting’s brutal nature. Most of the matches end with a knockout, which boxing fans prefer to see as well. MMA has also been featured recently on Sports Center and on the front cover of ESPN: The Magazine, with UFC fighter Chuck Liddell posing in the front cover. Boxing is rarely on national sports shows such as Sports Center. Even in a pay per view title fight the fights are usually talked about for a short amount of time. Therefore the question is, is MMA a phase? Or is the sport of mixed martial arts here to stay? Professional boxing will be asking these questions.
Boxing probably draws most of its interest from the heavy weight division. With this said, I would be lucky if one out of ten random people could name one of the current heavyweight champions, even current IBF Champ, Wladimir Klitschko. People also simply like to watch two goliaths beat the living pulp out of each other rather than watch a technically sound fight which both Winky Wright and Floyd Mayweather, JR., usually provide. People enjoyed watching Mike Tyson walk around the ring like a snarling animal knocking his opponents out like they were little children. They also enjoyed the confidence and swagger in which Tyson provided and the controversy which he carried everywhere he went. However, the days of Mike Tyson being on top of the sport of boxing are over, and we simply have to move on to a new fighter which can draw the attention of all sports fans.
With all of the competition and lack of super stars in the sport of boxing, who can be the sport’s savior? Let’s put Manny Pacquiao to the test. Pacquiao’s record is an impressive, 44-3-2, 35 KO’s. His style is very entertaining, a boxer who comes at his opponents, rather than dodges them and this is what fight fans want to see. The number of knock out’s in his career reflect his fighting style. Pacquiao has defeated two of the best boxers in the super featherweight division of all time in Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales.
The “Pacman” defeated Morales via eleventh round TKO in 2003. Pacquiao also avenged his loss to Morales in 2005 coming back and defeating Morales not only once, but twice. Pacquiao defeated Morales by way of technical knock out in early 2003 and then defeated him again via third round knock out in the rubber match the same year. At just 28-years-old Morales has defeated two of the greatest boxers of all time, avenged his loss to Morales, currently is the WBC International Super Featherweight Champion and is one of the most popular rising stars in the sport of boxing. Pacquiao has recently gained so much popularity in his home country of the Philippines that he even ran for a congressional seat in the 1st district of Cataboto. He lost, but just the fact that he ran for a congressional seat shows how popular Pacquiao is in his homeland, the Philippines.
This might be the problem though. Pacquiao hails from the island nation and country the Philippines. The country actually does have quite a few people living in it, being the twelfth most populous country with over 85 million citizens. However, how many super star athletes that perform in the United States are foreign to the United States? Basketball is starting to produce quite a few foreign super star athletes including Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, Yao Ming and more. Baseball as well, with many players hailing from the country of the Dominican Republic and Japan. But boxing has enough problems producing an American born superstar fighter, so why would Pacquiao, a foreign born fighter be a super star in the sport of boxing and save the sport? The fact that Pacquiao is not an American born citizen probably hurts his superstar status and also affects his ability to save the sport of boxing.
The most popular weight classes in boxing are probably heavyweight, middleweight and welterweight. Pacquiao does not compete in any of these weight classes, as he fights in the super featherweight division, a division which certainly doesn’t draw much interest to the casual boxing fan. Heavy weight fights have produced such great matches as Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield. Middle weight fights have produced such great matches as Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Marvin Hagler. Welterweight fights have produced such great show downs as Oscar De La Hoya vs. Shane Mosley. Therefore, what great matches has the super feather weight division produced? Of course there have been great matches in the past, but to the casual sports fans, or even casual boxing fans they probably wouldn’t be able to name classic matches throughout the history of the division. Ultimately this hurt’s Pacquiao’s super star status and ability to save the sport of boxing as well.
Pacquiao is a tremendous boxer and an extremely popular name throughout professional boxing. However, can he save the sport of boxing by himself? No, but Pacquiao certainly can help save the sport of boxing with a combination of other fighters helping, but by himself he simply doesn’t have enough super star credibility to be a main stream type of athlete throughout all of sports.
