Who needs heavyweights when you have small men – like Manny Pacquiao – who fights big?
This, in capsule form, is the idea that award-winning New York Times columnist Richard Sandomir, wants to impart to those who have this outdated notion that the heavyweight division remains boxing’s flagship weight class.
“If this decade has proved anything, it is that the little guys can carry boxing on their own,” Sandomir wrote on the Dec. 30, 2009 issue of the Times.
“Conventional wisdom once held that the sport needs a healthy heavyweight division. It was true with Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, and with George Foreman, Evander Holyfield, and Mike Tyson, whose reputation for ferocity lasted long after his skills diminished.
“But if a critical measure of boxing’s strength is pay-per-view success, then the heavyweights surrendered their hold on fans in 2002 after Lennox Lewis knocked out Tyson, drawing 1.98 million buyers paying $112 million.”
Sandomir noted that the past decade, the fight game has been dominated by men who weigh like an average fellow walking down Times Square.
“Ever since, pay-per-view has been dominated by Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Manny Pacquiao, skilled and charismatic men of the lower weight divisions.
The roster of nonheavyweights also includes Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosley, Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez, Winky Wright, and Bernard Hopkins.
When De La Hoya and Mayweather fought in 2007, it drew 2.4 million PPV buys and Pacquiao’s victory over Miguel Cotto generated 1.25 million subscriptions.
“And the heavyweights? John Ruiz, the Klitschkos (Vitali and Wladimir), Ruslan Chagaev, David Haye, Sultan Ibragimov, and Nikolai Valuev do not stir the pugilistic soul or hit pay-per-view heights,” noted Sandomir.
With De La Hoya now retired, this leaves Mayweather and Pacquiao as boxing’s saviors going into the next decade.
“But Pacquiao may be the greatest boxer of the three and the one to carry the sport into the next decade.
That is if he survives a fight with Mayweather (a bout that is in serious doubt if you believe that the nastiness between the camps over prefight blood testing will kill a huge moneymaker) and does not seek a second act in Philippine politics too soon.”
Sandomir concluded: “This little guy, who until 2005 never fought above 130 pounds, is elevating boxing in a way men nearly twice his size cannot.”
