Now that some time has passed from last week’s bout between Manny Pacquiao VS. Antonio Margarito, maybe we can talk a bit before the next media hype circus comes to town. There are a few things that need to be put into perspective.
Before anything else, is Manny Pacquiao the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world? Yes.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I do have a problem with his so called 8th division victory. I’m not saying Manny is without merit. Hardly. He’s faced top quality opposition and has quite simply overwhelmed the odds on all fronts, that you can’t help but admire the kid. But a junior middleweight champion he is not. Simply put, how can you win a 154 lb. belt when you come into the fight weighing in at 148?
There are quite a few other things that smell fishy from that fight, but I’ll go into detail in another post. In this case I’m just talking about the weight, which was a super issue. Is it admirable that he stepped into the ring with a Margarito weighing 167 pounds? You bet your ass, but accepting this title is like accepting Miguel Cotto as a legitimate 154 pounder. Simply put, neither are fighters of this weight in the same fashion that neither Tito Trinidad, Oscar De la Hoya or Ricardo Mayorga were 160 pound fighters even if they did have fights at this weight.
Do they all have marketability? Of course, that’s why last weekend's BS fight happened in the first place, but they took the sleazy way into making history, and as a boxing fan, though I’m a huge Manny supporter, I can’t help but feel the need to call him out on this one. You want to say you won in an 8th division? Do what you did at 147 when you knocked out a game Miguel Cotto, at the time recognized as the guy to beat at 147 lbs. not called Mayweather.
For now though, suffice to say that I still consider Manny a magnificent 7 division champion.
THE MANNY PACQUIAO PICTURE CAME FROM: http://www.examiner.com/fight-sports-in-pittsburgh/the-contenders-to-manny-pacquiao-s-pound-for-pound-throne
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