With Floyd Mayweather apparently not too anxious to come to the table, Manny Pacquiao will continue to look for options where he can make some big money via the pay-per-view route. He?s got a potential opponent that may not have the name value of Mayweather, but certainly a lot of respect in the boxing world and a title that represent new frontiers for PacMan to explore.
I?m not sure I have quite figured out what official championship Sergio Martinez holds ? I would assume it?s the WBC ?Diamond Belt? middleweight title ? but he is, for all intents and purposes, the recognized middleweight champion of the world right now. As such, there is a lot of value there, and that?s the kind of value Pacquiao and his connections would find very attractive.
The Martinez side, which includes promoter Lou DiBella, is unquestionably interested. And why wouldn?t they be? If nothing else, it?s a chance to make a major financial score.
It has been mentioned that a fight like that might take place at a catchweight of 150 pounds, and that makes sense, since Pacquiao, being the bigger draw, would be in more of a position to dictate terms.
DiBella knows enough to know this, and he also knows that the options for Martinez aren?t plentiful. The state of affairs in boxing isn?t like it was decades ago, when there was a lot of depth in each division. Fighters must go ?vertical? now, more than they ever did before. That?s what has precipitated many more multi-division champions than were seen in the first 90 years or so they fought with gloves on.
I don?t think the weight would be very much of a strain for the Filipino phenom. Thus far, Pacquiao?s highest official weight as a pro was 145-3/4 pounds, as he defended his WBO welterweight title against Joshua Clottey. That took place more than a year and a half ago, so he could easily be in the ballpark.
There might be more of a problem for Martinez at that weight. He hasn?t always been a middleweight; in fact, he began his career in the welterweight division, moving into the junior middleweight class with a series of fights in 2002 and 2003 that culminated in him winning and IBO title at that weight and defending it a couple of times.
After holding the interim WBC crown at 154, he made the full-fledged move into the middleweight division with the highly-competitive effort against Paul Williams in December 2009, a disputed majority decision defeat. He is comfortable enough at the higher weight, scoring subsequent wins over Williams, and before that, Kelly Pavlik. It was the last fight, an eleventh-round KO of Darren Barker, that gave Pacquiao?s trainer, Freddie Roach, some ideas as to how his man could handle Martinez.
Roach has indicated he is not all that impressed with Martinez as a boxer, and truth be told, Martinez is not going to dazzle anyone as a technician in the classic sense. He uses his unorthodoxy to advantage, however, just like Pacquiao does.
Here?s the thing with Martinez, though: he hasn?t been at 150 pounds since 2003, and at age 36, as impressive an athlete as he is, it?s not an easy thing to get down that far in weight and be the same fighter. In other words, it?s tough to go backwards.
And that brings up a key factor in this proposed fight. It isn?t so critical whether Pacquiao can get up to 150 pounds and fight well, because there?s nothing that says he has to do that. He could be anywhere from 145-147 and be right at where he needs to be, in every respect. Remember, Antonio Margarito was 150 and outweighed Manny by five and a half pounds.
In other words, Pacquiao has some flexibility in a matchup that is governed by those parameters. The important thing, if they?re going to negotiate that catchweight, is that they would make Martinez come down to 150 pounds, and at this point in his career, that has the potential of attributing the ?unknown? factor to the middleweight champion
