The Great Manny Pacquiao.
That?s capital ?G? great.
Few fighters, still in their prime, could be genuinely identified as the ?The Great?? anything. The Filipino icon is among those few. If he lost every fight left in his career from this Saturday forward, Pacquiao?s accomplishments over the last decade and change would outweigh those defeats.
This has been a fistic era marked with too much inactivity and too little risk. Pacquiao has overcome most of the objections.
A large part of the Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO) profile is his collection of titles. Those titles illustrate the weight span he has traveled. He is the only fighter in the history of boxing to win the lineal World Championship of four different weight classes. He is the only fighter in history to stake a claim to any significant title (defined for this era as lineal, WBC, WBA, IBF, or WBO) in seven different divisions.
His first title, the lineal and WBC throne at Flyweight (112 lbs.), came by knockout in December 1998. The WBO Welterweight (147 lb.) belt he wears now, was earned with a stoppage of Miguel Cotto in November 2009.
This Saturday, against former Welterweight titlist Antonio Margarito (38-6, 27 KO), Pacquiao will go for a belt in an eighth division.
Outside of some shameless television advertising doing what it is supposed to do, it?s hard to find much excitement about this potentially looming accomplishment.
Good.
Given where Pacquiao has come from on the scale, and all that Margarito got done in the 2000?s at Welterweight (regardless of the Shane Mosley wrap controversy), defeating Margarito could be impressive on its own. The belt on the line is anything but.
Should Pacquiao defeat Margarito for the vacant WBC 154 lb. belt this weekend, it would be the most hollow of all his title wins.
How so?
First off, this fight for a so-called major 154 lb. title is not being contested between two fighters with any sort of established credentials in the division. Pacquiao has never fought above Welterweight.
Margarito has fought above Welterweight only three times since winning the WBO Welterweight belt against Antonio Diaz in 2001, posting two wins against a single, narrow loss to Daniel Santos for the WBO belt in 2004.
That 2004 contest was the only Jr. Middleweight tilt involving Margarito until the ?Tijuana Tornado? returned from over a year of suspension with a win over Roberto Garcia in May of this year. Somehow, getting caught trying to load his gloves, being suspended, and winning one fight at J
