Last Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, we got to look at a great fighter reminding historians and document keepers everywhere that WBC Lightweight Champion Manny ?Pacman? Pacquiao is not finished beating the odds.
The concept just three months ago was that Juan Diaz would destroy the ?Pacman? if he was to ever present a challenge but Nate Campbell threw a wrench in the works. To me, Pacquiao is one shy away from five championship titles at different weights; and depending on how you choose to look at it; he has it in him to win a 6th world title. It wouldn?t surprise me if he beat Campbell and reserved that as his sixth, and then went 140 to fight Paulie Malignaggi for his title.
Does anyone know what that means? It?ll mean you?ll either have to grow to like him, or get Pretty Boy Floyd back. Supposedly if Manny gets passed Campbell, and then the winner of Malignaggi-Ricky Hatton, do you then criticize he hadn?t made defenses of his title?
Nobody ever said that about Floyd when he challenged the best welterweight in Golden Boy for World accolades, and nobody would say that about Pacman in fighting Campbell should he beat him. Fighting Casamayor in this era would even surpass Floyd in his endeavors right now at this stage if the lightweights fell into place. You may argue that PBF had more defenses earlier in his career, but nobody can deny right now as it stands that Pacquiao has legitimate rights for p4p, and can just go straight to 140, and then drop back down to 135 and clean up the division to be undisputedly the best.
Pacquiao has already proven himself beyond shadows of doubts. David Diaz was the lightweight test we all been hoping for.
A Oscar De La Hoya ? Felix Trinidad Rematch?
It is possible. The designated target is assumable for the winner of Miguel Cotto-Antonio Margarito, but nothing is etched in stone yet.
Trinidad-De La Hoya 1999, when the recording artist who was known as Prince had a hit song about a revelation into the future that dealt with partying, but there was no feast for Oscar De La Hoya as he came up short against Felix Trinidad on the losing end of a majority decision for the ultimate true welterweight supremacy.
Tito was looked at as the ?90?s super-renegade fighter that decade, with more defenses in his reign as IBF Welterweight Champion (totaled 15), and garnering the WBC version from around the waist of De La Hoya.
Trinidad was indestructible back then, practically decapitating Yory Boy Campas and destroying Emanuel Steward?s prot?g?, the undefeated Oba Carr. The infectious Trinidad kept mowing them down one by one to which his legacy is sealed.
Don King is chomping at the bit to put a rematch together all these years later. There aren?t any signed contracts. Realistically nobody really knows from the moment that bell rings on what?s going to happen when Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto fight. This can be a war that?ll wear very heavily on each fighter, both in the long and short of it.
With a Trinidad-De La Hoya return it?s endemically a match for redemption and resolve, ending the long discussions and debates. Oscar lost a majority decision, not losing by a split verdict, and if this fight puts to rest all the tales with even optical illusions about whom you thought really won, then you the fan should support it.
Welterweight Showdown
WBA Welterweight ruler Miguel Angel Cotto has been in intense training accompanied with his uncle/trainer Evangelista, making the sparring sessions of Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays more variable and comfortable for the champion.
Cotto is a student of the art, and his tempered-mild-manner is harnessed through drills Evangelista Cotto orchestrates. The pair has been an item now for years, and the one thing that Miguel does do is extensively listening to him, before and after drills.
The payoff is practiced time and time again with patience, serenity, and feistiness.
Miguel Cotto knows what?s at stake in his upcoming mammoth Welterweight Showdown, perhaps as big as the 1981 one between Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard.
The one thing that we aren?t going to come away with is disappointment. This?ll be the kind of fight everyone imagines it to be. A straight up war.
