IT has been almost a decade since Manny Pacquiao moved up in weight and while he nearly pitched a shutout in beating Mexican Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC super welterweight (154 lbs.) championship in November 2010, it was not really a walk in the park.
Pacquiao had to consistently box and punch from different angles for all 12 rounds against the bigger Margarito. He rocked Margarito in the fourth stanza but made it a point to avoid going gung-ho on offense. In the sixth round, there was a collective sigh of relief from Filipino fight fans when Pacquiao survived a hellacious body shot from Margarito. When the rosin settled, Pacquiao won by a unanimous decision and walked away with his eighth division championship, but he never bothered to defend the super welterweight belt and promptly returned to the welterweight (147 lbs.) class.
Except for the one-fight cameo at super welterweight, Pacquiao has been a resident of the welterweight division since November 2009 when he beat Miguel Cotto for the WBO crown. Today, Pacquiao is on his fourth reign as welterweight king, beating Keith Thurman in his last outing (July 2019) to earn recognition as WBA ‘super’ welterweight champion.
Don’t look know, but some ten years after the Margarito fight Pacquiao is apparently feeling the urge to move up in weight again. Trainer Freddie Roach recently floated the idea of Pacquiao moving all the way up to the middleweight (160 lbs.) division to take on IBF king Gennady Golovkin (40-1, 1 draw, 35 knockouts).
Pacquiao already holds the all-time record with eight division titles (6 crowns, 2 lineal versions) but the temptation to collar a ninth is turning out to be irresistible, what with the prognosis that Golovkin may have seen better days.
Golovkin, 38, was once the most feared puncher in boxing. Between 2008 and 2017, he scored 23 straight knockout victories. Golovkin’s cloak of invincibility, however, was left in tatters when Mexican Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez defeated him in their second match in September 2018.
In his last outing, October 2019, Golovkin struggled to beat Sergiy Derevyanchenko for the vacant IBF middleweight crown. Golovkin won on points but absorbed more blows than any previous fight in his career. Derevyanchenko’s speed and mobility also made Golovkin look really old. In the fifth and sixth rounds, body shots from Derevyanchenko visibly hurt Golovkin.
Golovkin claimed he suffered from the flu going into the fight, but his pedestrian performance against Derevyanchenko is likely to be cited by Roach as the best evidence that Pacquiao has a chance of winning the IBF crown. Golovkin may be ripe for the taking.
