Last Saturday night at the Mandalay Events Center in Las Vegas, Manny Pacquiao won the WBC lightweight title by TKO at 2:24 of round nine over a game, but outclassed, David Diaz. At the post fight press conference, Manny was asked if he thought he was the best lightweight in the world.
?I don?t compare myself to other fighters,? Manny replied. ?I just try to make people happy.?
And that he did, in was likely the finest performance of his career. It was a brilliant combination of speed, power, and boxing skills that we didn?t know existed that gave the Filipino icon his fourth title in four weight classes. It was truly a performance for the Manny Pacquiao time capsule.
From the opening bell, Pacquiao?s hand speed, side to side movement, and overall ring generalship utterly dominated Diaz, who was showing signs of a cut over his right eye and bridge of his nose as early as round two. The eye progressively worsened as Manny the Energizer Bunny zipped in and out with blazing multi punch combinations.
Round after round, Diaz fought on gamely, eating shots as he endured his personal version of the Bataan Death March. Finally he was tagged by a short straight left on the button that left him falling face first to the canvas, and referee Vic Drakulich called it off without a count.
?My first concern was for Diaz,? Manny said, echoing the thoughts of many. ?I tried to pick him up.?
Diaz received $850,000 to take this beating, so you can?t say that he mistreated in any way. And he seemed to truly believe that he could win.
Nevertheless, his own promoter, Top Rank, has obviously guided him toward their superstars (Erik Morales, Pacquiao) since he was awarded the title. So, not to take anything away from Diaz, who is a tough kid and a nice one at that, but let?s face it, his greatest talent was that WBC belt.
So how Manny will fare with the likes of Nate Campbell, Juan Diaz, Joel Casamayor and others in a loaded division is a legitimate question, but one to address on another day. Many questions will be resolved in early September when Campbell-Joan Guzman, Juan Manuel Marquez-Casamayor and Diaz-Michael Katsidis take place.
It should be noted that part of the spin to sell this fight was that Diaz is a natural 140 pounder and Manny started his career in 1995 at 106 pounds and 135 might be pushing it for him. Would his power carry? Would Diaz overpower him?
After the fight, Freddie Roach said, ?He?s getting a little bigger, a little bit older and maybe that (135) is a more natural weight for him. I think fighters should fight at their natural weight.?
Speed is power and while Pac might not have one punch power at 135, the cumulative effects of that blinding hand speed thrown in volume is going to cut ?em up and shake ?em up. Ask David Diaz if he thinks Manny carried his power. And Diaz never had the opportunity to overpower Manny because he was too busy blocking punches with his face, because Pacquiao boxed so brilliantly.
The Compubox stats bear out the domination. Pacquiao landed 180 of 490 power punches, compared to 59 of 319 for Diaz. In total punches, Pacquiao was 230 of 788 while Diaz managed only 90 connects in 463 punches thrown.
THE UNDERCARD
You know, often you can order a PPV event and not find a single remarkable fight until the main event. Not so on Saturday night.
In a sleeper fight for the WBO featherweight title, titlist Steve Luevano and Mario Santiago fought to a draw, 117-111 Luevano, 115-113 Santiago, and 114-114. At ringside, I concurred with the 114-114 score.
It has been said that Luevano often participates in less than crowd pleasing bouts, yet if not for Pacquiao?s performance this one might have stolen the show. Both fighters hit the deck in round two, but Luevano still won the first four rounds on all cards.
But Santiago showed a lot of pluck and fought his way back into the fight, dominating the late and middle rounds.
After the fight Luevano said, ?I thought I kind of won the fight but I still have my title.?
He landed 215 shots compared to 214 for Santiago, and had a slight edge in power punches, 136-124. So that one could have gone either way and there would be few complaints. That was a good thing compared to what was to follow shortly.
But before we get to that, Monte Barrett ended our National Nightmare and KO?d Tye Fields at 57 seconds of round one, putting an end to that particular pretender.
Barrett told promoter Bob Arum at the press conference after the fight, ?Look how much money I just saved you.?
In the controversy of the night, maybe the year actually, Francisco Lorenzo won the WBC interim super featherweight belt by disqualification at 2:43 of the fourth round over Humberto Soto, a 9-1 favorite for what it is worth.
This fight had increased importance as it turns out because that is the title held by Pacquiao that he will certainly soon relinquish.
Soto was dominating the early going, looking bigger and better than his opponent. In the fourth, a left uppercut from Soto dropped Lorenzo and it seemed to be the end. Lorenzo beat the count and Soto rained a torrent of punches on him.
Referee Joe Cortez, whose stock is dropping like the Dow, stepped in to apparently stop the contest, and save the bloodied Lorenzo.
Lorenzo went to his knees and Soto threw a last shot that glanced off the top of Lorenzo?s head.
And then in the worst acting performance this side of David Caruso on ?Miami CSI,? Lorenzo was soon flat on his back for several minutes while Cortez discussed the situation with the Nevada commission.
The ruling was that Soto hit Lorenzo on the back of the head, a circumstance not supported on replay. The crowd loudly booed the decision of a DQ victory for a man whose Lazarus like recovery from being flat on the floor to parading around the ring with his gloves raised in the winner?s pose stretched all possible credibility.
Now just think, this thespian is about to take over Manny Pacquiao?s title.
In my opinion it should have been a Soto TKO. At the very worst, maybe a no-decision if you believed that bunk that Lorenzo was serving up, but DQ? No way.
NOTES:
*Jorge Arce, in an impromptu men?s room interview said that he expects to face flyweight titlist Nonito Donaire, who signed with Top Rank last week, in late September, validating a previous source. In fact, I heard that it might be a double header with Fernando Montiel (possibly giving up his WBO belt) taking on WBC super flyweight titlist Cristian Mijares.
*Look for James Kirkland to sign with Top Rank this week.
* The attendance was a disappointing 8,362. Arum blamed the President and the ever rising energy costs. I?m curious about the all important PPV sales. Will the cost of travel encourage more people to order from the sofa, or in a suffering economy, is boxing too much of a luxury?
*It?s all in the interpretation. When Pacquiao was asked about a possible upcoming fight with Ricky Hatton, he deferred to Arum who said, ?Manny will defend his lightweight title. Hatton is scheduled to fight Paulie Malignaggi in November. So, if we?re going to do a Ricky Hatton fight, it won?t be until sometime next year.?
Many took that as ?Hatton in ?09? but I only heard the ?if.? After all, they just found out that Pac is a bona-fide lightweight and they would like to cash in there first.
Manny?s next opponent?
Arum said, ?Whoever it is will thrill everybody, believe me. Everyone has been waiting for this fight and hopefully we will be able to deliver it, and the fight will be in November.?
With so many of the top dogs in the lightweight division facing off in September, my guess is that Arum is referring to Edwin Valero.
* Before we close today, I would be remiss if I didn?t thank my colleague Mario Ortega Jr. for making this one of my most enjoyable trips. The prolific Ortega put out so much copy that I was able to lay back and enjoy the ride. I can?t thank him enough.
Some people think that the internet doesn?t develop up and coming writers. Mario is Exhibit A that this is no longer the case. If that young man keeps working at it as he is today, he?s going to be one of the top boxing writers around for a long, long time.
