Manny Pacquiao: The World's Greatest Boxer

I wonder if there is any fight in recent history that has generated as much discussion as the December 6, 2008 Oscar de la Hoya-Manny Pacquiao fight. While there had been huge ring battles in the recent past—among them Mayweather-dela Hoya, Pacquiao-Morales, Castillo-Corrales, etc—they were huge not only because the protagonists represented the cream of prizefighting crop, but also because they looked like, from whichever way one sized them up, evenly matched. Not like this one, obviously. The Pacquiao-dela Hoya match looks like a huge mismatch. And the intriguing part of it is that while mismatches do not normally attract attention, this one does.

Aside from the drawing power of both fighters, what adds to the excitement among boxing fans and tension among partisans is the fact that nobody thought that a fight like this could have happened in the first place—ever—except perhaps Manny himself. Sure some people—like HBO’s Larry Merchant and Super Trainer Freddie Roach—have early on dreamed aloud about it, but their visions would have amounted to nothing had Manny stayed within the mold of the ordinary. That Dela Hoya needed to rationalize it—he (Pacquiao) challenged me, he said—may have helped the two fighters to come to terms, but the key still hinged on how Manny measured his limits. He said more than once he could beat Oscar; and when media announced that the fight with the Golden Boy was on, Manny’s loyal fans could only hope he meant what he said.

But still a large part of the boxing world remains skeptical. While a few—like the legendary Roberto Duran—picks Manny over Oscar; the rest of the mob feels otherwise. Reactions to the fight varied from disbelief to summary verdict: “Pacquiao will not last a few rounds against de la Hoya”, “Oscar will knock him out!”, “Midget Pacquiao—No Way!”, etc. The betting odds at Las Vegas, upon which most boxing experts base their analysis of fight outcomes, currently favor Oscar, +180 against -230 (a bet of 100 on Manny wins 180, while a 230 wager on Oscar is needed to win 100).

Viewing the pound-for-pound king Pacquiao as underdog is not baseless. Oscar has fought as a middleweight at 164 pounds, while Manny started his professional boxing career at 106 pounds. And although Manny weighed 135 pounds in his last outing against David Diaz to Oscar’s 154 pounds in his last bout against Steve Forbes—or a difference of 19 pounds—the size disparity between the two still makes it hard for ordinary mortals to imagine that one of them could be taking on the other inside the ring. The dream match obliges both fighters to go after the magical weight limit of 147, putting Manny farther away from his normal fighting weight more than it does to Oscar.

No one needs to be reminded that a pound of flesh is sacrosanct in boxing. An expensive boxing promotion can be scrapped when questions over weight limits are unresolved, as in the case of the recently-aborted Nate Campbell-Joan Guzman fight. Belts can change hands—or waists—on the same issue, just like what happened to Manny early in his career. The late Diego Corrales refused to face Jose Luis Castillo a third time because the latter stayed two pounds over the limit at weigh-in. “I have a family and children to feed,” Corrales explained, obviously alluding to the health risks fighters face when they are up against bigger opponents.

Manny has thus separated himself from ordinary mortals when he decided to face the much bigger Oscar inside the ring. Even without his size advantage, Oscar will be hard to beat. The Golden Boy glitters because he has substance. He is not a 10-time world champion for nothing. Against the smaller PacMan, he will not need to load up on his punches. He can lob left hooks and long rights like he is flicking jabs.

At his current financial stature, Manny hardly needs to take any risk. He needs something else. He must have felt—as he himself said it through media—that the challenge to beat Oscar meant more than the lure of money. Taking the challenge could have been a way of saying he needed to prove what he can do against the best fighters in the planet; and with a size handicap, he can raise the standards of prizefighting to an improbably higher level.

For daring to test his limits, Manny has given himself a stab at greatness and boxing immortality. With courage, enough preparation as well faith in God and in himself, he has what it takes to defy the odds and beat de la Hoya. Even the best of them can miss their target, and an Oscar dela Hoya who blinks for a fleeting second is all Manny needs to land a picture perfect shot. With speed and power inside the ring, the PacMan will have his chances to explode, create mayhem and come out of the match without equal.

The day after December 6 can be the start of Manny’s undisputed reign in boxing. By then the debate on who is the world’s greatest boxer ever can neither begin nor end without mention of his name.