By Robert Morales, Los Angeles Daily News
Manny Pacquiao took apart Miguel Cotto with ferocious relentlessness, stopping Cotto in the 12th round Nov. 14 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
His promoter, Bob Arum, referred to Pacquiao in the post-fight news conference as the Tiger Woods of boxing. A reporter shouted out that no, Tiger Woods is the Manny Pacquiao of golf.
The victory gave Pacquiao success in seven weight classes - five sanctioned world titles and two people's championships. The record for sanctioned world titles is six, held by Oscar De La Hoya. Floyd Mayweather Jr. has five.
Ironically, they are two of the five defendants - the others are Floyd Mayweather Sr., Roger Mayweather and Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer - named in the defamation lawsuit filed by Pacquiao this week in Las Vegas.
Not that jealousy has anything to do with either insinuating that Pacquiao might be using performance-enhancing drugs, as they are not alone in their suspicion of Pacquiao.
Two former world champions - Paulie Malignaggi and Kermit Cintron - have wondered if Pacquiao is dirty. Others - such as Hall of Fame fighter Carlos Palomino - have said of the Olympic-style drug testing demanded by Mayweather for his March 13 fight with Pacquiao that appears dead, "If this guy has nothing to hide, why not do it?"
In watching Pacquiao's performance against Cotto, it was amazing to see how hard Pacquiao was punching and how well he absorbed the powerful punches of Cotto. Even when Pacquiao was clobbered on the chin, he was undeterred.
By this time, Mayweather Sr. had already accused Pacquiao of doping. Yet, reporters weren't whispering at the aforementioned post-fight news conference that Pacquiao must be.
Just because Pacquiao's accomplishments are virtually unheard of, does not mean he is guilty of wrongdoing. It could be he is just that athlete who comes along once every hundred years.
Pacquiao started his pro career at 106 pounds, so it is rather mind-boggling that he is so good in the 147-pound welterweight division, in which he has beaten both De La Hoya and Cotto.
But Pacquiao was 16 when he turned pro in 1995 in the Philippines.
Mayweather was 16 when he won his first National Golden Gloves championship at, you guessed it, 106 pounds.
Mayweather won the third of his Golden Gloves titles at 19, at 125 pounds. Two weeks before his 20th birthday, Pacquiao won his first major pro title in the 112-pound flyweight division. He had only grown by six pounds. But bodies do develop at different rates.
Mayweather has twice weighed in at 147 pounds and as high as 150 for his 2007 fight against De La Hoya. Pacquiao's highest weigh-in was 144 pounds against Cotto. He weighed only 142 for De La Hoya, five pounds shy of the welterweight limit.
We're not naive. Anything is possible. Pacquiao has retained his punch while moving up like perhaps no other. Power is the first thing that goes when climbing the ladder. Also, he fought as low as 129 pounds in March 2008, just 20 months before weighed in at 144 for Cotto.
It just seems that the American credo of innocent until proven guilty fell by the wayside here. Pacquiao never has tested positive for anything illegal.
Yet, his reputation has taken the sort of hit from which it will never fully recover. From now on, Pacquiao will be looked upon by some as one who might have indulged in unsavory methods for fame and unprecedented achievements.
De La Hoya's Golden Boy company represented Mayweather in the negotiations for the Pacquiao fight. De La Hoya didn't help matters when he wrote in his Ring Magazine online blog that the punches by Fernando Vargas, "Sugar" Shane Mosley and Pacquiao "felt the same," an intimation Pacquiao could have been juiced when he stopped De La Hoya after eight rounds in December 2008.
Vargas and Mosley were both on steroids in their fights against De La Hoya in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
That was interesting coming from De La Hoya because he said after his loss to Pacquiao that he never felt Pacquiao's punches.
Another thing: Zab Judah wanted Mosley to take an independent blood test to prove he was clean ahead of their scheduled May 2008 fight that was canceled when Judah was injured.
Mosley is promoted by Golden Boy, and Schaefer said then he would not allow Mosley - who agreed to the test - to submit to anything other than what the Nevada commission mandates. Schaefer said Mosley did not need to be treated like a cheat.
It's easy to say Manny Pacquiao should agree to Olympic-style drug-testing if he's clean. It's just as easy to say he shouldn't have to become the first professional boxer to do so just because he is so extraordinarily destructive in the ring and, because, unlike others who have moved up in weight, his body has remained ripped with muscles. As has Mayweather's.
If boxing wants to adapt Olympic-style testing, that's great - as long as it applies to everyone. Not just the top pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.
Good, bad and tragic permeated sport in 2009
Just a few thoughts on a year that was filled with the good, the bad and the tragic:
Any Fighter of the Year award must go to Manny Pacquiao.
Pacquiao knocked out Ricky Hatton in the second round in May, literally putting Hatton to sleep before his head hitting the canvas awakened him.
Pacquiao followed that up with a serious November beatdown of welterweight champion Miguel Cotto, who was stopped in the 12th round of a fight he was losing handily.
Trainer of the Year is Pacquiao's chief second, Freddie Roach.
The continued improvement Pacquiao showed under Roach's guidance was very noteworthy.
Roach has turned the once wild-swinging and vulnerable Pacquiao into a controlled force of destruction.
There are several solid candidates for Fight of the Year. The junior welterweight bout between Victor Ortiz and Marcos Maidana in June at Staples Center was incredible.
Maidana was down three times, Ortiz twice, with Maidana winning a sixth-round technical knockout.
The middleweight fight between Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez last month in Atlantic City - won by Williams via majority decision - was outstanding.
Neither topped the February slugfest between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz.
The fight was a push heading into the ninth round, with one scorecard even and each fighter holding a two-point advantage on one of the others.
Marquez stopped Diaz in the ninth round.
If there were such thing as a Most Impressive Victory award, it would go to Pomona's "Sugar" Shane Mosley and his ninth-round stoppage of Antonio Margarito in January at Staples Center.
Virtually no one expected the 37-year-old Mosley to have any real chance of defeating the 30-year-old Margarito.
But Mosley beat Margarito from pillar to post. Margarito then had his license revoked when he was caught with plaster-contained hand wraps before the fight.
Unfortunately, 2009 also witnessed the untimely July deaths of gentleman boxers Alexis Arguello, Arturo Gatti and Vernon Forrest.
Their demise puts the aforementioned achievements into perspective.
Source: dailynews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment