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.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Schaefer's Marquez Gambit
The call for a dream fight in Pacman-Marquez 3 has dramatically grown more intense after Juan Manuel Marquez cut down Ring Magazine lightweight champion Joel Casamayor last Sunday, September 14 (Manila time), in Las Vegas, USA.
To be sure, a Pacman-Marquez trilogy has presented itself after the two brave and brilliant gladiators clashed in a rematch last March 2008 also in Las Vegas. Richard Schaefer, Golden Boy Promotions’ Chief Executive Officer, has said in a post-fight interview that the Oscar dela Hoya outfit can offer Pacman 6 million dollars to face Marquez in a third outing. Pacman did not grab the offer but instead went on to browse his order of battle and ended up signing a ring date with the Golden Boy himself—now dubbed “The Dream Match”—and set to rouse the boxing world on December 6, 2008, again in Las Vegas. Schaefer’s latest gambit is not so much about the prizefighter in Pacman, but rather it touches on the testicular ego of any fighter.
In a recent interview with setantasports.com, Scheafer insinuated that Pacman dreads facing Marquez again. Scheafer said that while he would like to see a Pacman-Marquez 3, he believes “that Pacquiao and his team know what the result would be... The money for Pacquiao-Marquez fight is there so it cannot be the money.” Scheafer also shot down the notion that Pacman picked Diaz over Marquez because of money. For facing Diaz, Pacman was reported to have pocketed a professional fee much smaller in amount than what Golden Boy earlier dangled to propose a Pacman-Marquez 3.
These are all calculated wordwork aimed at baiting the Pacman to go down to the level of Marquez’ business sense. Many people say that Marquez is an intelligent fighter, whose rabid fans are now bracing up to raise him atop the pound-for-pound ranking, beside (if not ahead), or at least a notch below, the Pacman himself. This is where the irony lies. The branded Marquez brain hardly shows in how he attracts paying fans. The net effect is he remains dreaming for compensation that is anywhere close to what Pacman has been getting.
Although at one point the Pacman corner—after two epic ring battles—has already dismissed the Marquez question as answered, a third serving continues to draw so much interest for several reasons. One is what should be an obvious appreciation of the drawing potential of a third—and hopefully deciding—match at the box office. Another is pride of the Americas. And still another arises from the strategic positioning in the rivalry between the Golden Boy where Marquez belongs and Bob Arum’s Top Rank, to which Pacman is associated.
Pacman fans feel that Marquez does not have what it takes to beat Manny. Marquez should have lost the first time they met, but one judge who obviously did not know how to count or who probably forgotten what the rules say came to his rescue. Marquez salvaged a draw and kept his junior lightweight title which at the time was at stake. The second fight was also close, but the judges ruled that Pacman won it.
Marquez fans on the other hand think that Marquez won both fights. They claim that their fighter is a far superior boxer, technically and in terms of ringmanship (whatever that means), and as shown by his hitting Pacman with more precise, if not more telling, shots. (Maybe somebody should devise an alternative scoring scheme for fights that go the full distance, like looking at whose face gets more distorted at the end of the fight, or which boxer looks more spent and is gasping for more oxygen, etc.—but that would be another story.)
The inconclusiveness of the results of the two Pacman-Marquez fights is such that one wonders if both camps of Pacman and Marquez, or whoever boxing gods may exist out there, may have fixed the outcome so that a third fight can be this compelling. The succeeding forays by both fighters in the heavier lightweight division against separate opponents have produced impressive performances—Pacquiao stopping David Diaz in 9 and Marquez demolishing Casmayor in 11—all the more whetted the appetite of boxing fans for Pacman and Marquez to rumble one more time.
Some writers have declared that a Pacman-Marquez trilogy has now become a must. And observers will probably note that proponents of such a necessity mostly come from the Americas (particularly the North and Latin America). The Pacman has demolished the greatest boxers that America can shove in front of him atop the ring. It seems Marquez is the only one there is that can check American humiliation. While these proponents anticipate Pacman’s surrender at the hands of Oscar come December 6, they also concede that Pacman’s handicap in size does not inspire redemption for American pride.
People with a flair for commerce are also attracted to the what a Pacman-Marquez 3 can offer in terms of dollars. Such a dream fight has captured the imagination of boxing fans that it is easy to figure out the millions ready to come out and pay for it. But even here money makers will have to thank Pacman for a potential market that has grown dramatically huge. For challenging Oscar and the odds, Pacman has stoked the fire and passion for boxing as a sports spectacle the world has not seen since Henry Armstrong and Roberto Duran. Pacman simply has no match in the ring, and in projecting himself outside of it; he looms twice or thrice a draw after December 6.
Finally, Pacman and Marquez constitute a proxy war between the leading fight promoters today—Top Rank and Golden Boy. Like a tree that gets known and valued by the fruit it bears, promoters keep and expand their markets by the fighters they keep. Let no one forget that both promotion outfits had early on fought tooth and nail to lock Pacman into their stables, which makes the issues surrounding Pacman, Oscar, Marquez, Arum, among others, partake of something personal of some individuals concerned. But beyond all of the personal swipes that marred their professional ties lies the need to map their future. This is about strategy. Schaefer has laid the basis for it by baiting Pacman to face Marquez. But this has nothing to do with American pride. This has everything to do with commerce.
To be sure, a Pacman-Marquez trilogy has presented itself after the two brave and brilliant gladiators clashed in a rematch last March 2008 also in Las Vegas. Richard Schaefer, Golden Boy Promotions’ Chief Executive Officer, has said in a post-fight interview that the Oscar dela Hoya outfit can offer Pacman 6 million dollars to face Marquez in a third outing. Pacman did not grab the offer but instead went on to browse his order of battle and ended up signing a ring date with the Golden Boy himself—now dubbed “The Dream Match”—and set to rouse the boxing world on December 6, 2008, again in Las Vegas. Schaefer’s latest gambit is not so much about the prizefighter in Pacman, but rather it touches on the testicular ego of any fighter.
In a recent interview with setantasports.com, Scheafer insinuated that Pacman dreads facing Marquez again. Scheafer said that while he would like to see a Pacman-Marquez 3, he believes “that Pacquiao and his team know what the result would be... The money for Pacquiao-Marquez fight is there so it cannot be the money.” Scheafer also shot down the notion that Pacman picked Diaz over Marquez because of money. For facing Diaz, Pacman was reported to have pocketed a professional fee much smaller in amount than what Golden Boy earlier dangled to propose a Pacman-Marquez 3.
These are all calculated wordwork aimed at baiting the Pacman to go down to the level of Marquez’ business sense. Many people say that Marquez is an intelligent fighter, whose rabid fans are now bracing up to raise him atop the pound-for-pound ranking, beside (if not ahead), or at least a notch below, the Pacman himself. This is where the irony lies. The branded Marquez brain hardly shows in how he attracts paying fans. The net effect is he remains dreaming for compensation that is anywhere close to what Pacman has been getting.
Although at one point the Pacman corner—after two epic ring battles—has already dismissed the Marquez question as answered, a third serving continues to draw so much interest for several reasons. One is what should be an obvious appreciation of the drawing potential of a third—and hopefully deciding—match at the box office. Another is pride of the Americas. And still another arises from the strategic positioning in the rivalry between the Golden Boy where Marquez belongs and Bob Arum’s Top Rank, to which Pacman is associated.
Pacman fans feel that Marquez does not have what it takes to beat Manny. Marquez should have lost the first time they met, but one judge who obviously did not know how to count or who probably forgotten what the rules say came to his rescue. Marquez salvaged a draw and kept his junior lightweight title which at the time was at stake. The second fight was also close, but the judges ruled that Pacman won it.
Marquez fans on the other hand think that Marquez won both fights. They claim that their fighter is a far superior boxer, technically and in terms of ringmanship (whatever that means), and as shown by his hitting Pacman with more precise, if not more telling, shots. (Maybe somebody should devise an alternative scoring scheme for fights that go the full distance, like looking at whose face gets more distorted at the end of the fight, or which boxer looks more spent and is gasping for more oxygen, etc.—but that would be another story.)
The inconclusiveness of the results of the two Pacman-Marquez fights is such that one wonders if both camps of Pacman and Marquez, or whoever boxing gods may exist out there, may have fixed the outcome so that a third fight can be this compelling. The succeeding forays by both fighters in the heavier lightweight division against separate opponents have produced impressive performances—Pacquiao stopping David Diaz in 9 and Marquez demolishing Casmayor in 11—all the more whetted the appetite of boxing fans for Pacman and Marquez to rumble one more time.
Some writers have declared that a Pacman-Marquez trilogy has now become a must. And observers will probably note that proponents of such a necessity mostly come from the Americas (particularly the North and Latin America). The Pacman has demolished the greatest boxers that America can shove in front of him atop the ring. It seems Marquez is the only one there is that can check American humiliation. While these proponents anticipate Pacman’s surrender at the hands of Oscar come December 6, they also concede that Pacman’s handicap in size does not inspire redemption for American pride.
People with a flair for commerce are also attracted to the what a Pacman-Marquez 3 can offer in terms of dollars. Such a dream fight has captured the imagination of boxing fans that it is easy to figure out the millions ready to come out and pay for it. But even here money makers will have to thank Pacman for a potential market that has grown dramatically huge. For challenging Oscar and the odds, Pacman has stoked the fire and passion for boxing as a sports spectacle the world has not seen since Henry Armstrong and Roberto Duran. Pacman simply has no match in the ring, and in projecting himself outside of it; he looms twice or thrice a draw after December 6.
Finally, Pacman and Marquez constitute a proxy war between the leading fight promoters today—Top Rank and Golden Boy. Like a tree that gets known and valued by the fruit it bears, promoters keep and expand their markets by the fighters they keep. Let no one forget that both promotion outfits had early on fought tooth and nail to lock Pacman into their stables, which makes the issues surrounding Pacman, Oscar, Marquez, Arum, among others, partake of something personal of some individuals concerned. But beyond all of the personal swipes that marred their professional ties lies the need to map their future. This is about strategy. Schaefer has laid the basis for it by baiting Pacman to face Marquez. But this has nothing to do with American pride. This has everything to do with commerce.
Friday, September 12, 2008
For pushing himself to the limit, PacMan is the greatest
He tested his limits by taking up professional boxing at an early age. He worked hard. He dreamed. He succeeded.
At 17, after racking up successive wins in the ring, he challenged a bigger foe in Rustico Torrecampo. Overconfident and reckless, he lost to by knockout. It was his first loss.
He learned his lessons from that debacle. He racked another string of explosives wins ever seen in boxing, not only in the Philippines but also in the United States.
Twelve years later and after being hailed as the world's greatest boxer pound-for-pound, the PacMan tests his limits again. He fights Oscar de la Hoya on December 6, 2008 at Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Most people consider this fight as a mismatch in Oscar's favor.
The Pacman believes he has a chance against the 10-time world champion and the biggest draw in professional boxing ever. For dreaming the way he does, Pacman has become a winner even before fighting his biggest fight come December 6.
At 17, after racking up successive wins in the ring, he challenged a bigger foe in Rustico Torrecampo. Overconfident and reckless, he lost to by knockout. It was his first loss.
He learned his lessons from that debacle. He racked another string of explosives wins ever seen in boxing, not only in the Philippines but also in the United States.
Twelve years later and after being hailed as the world's greatest boxer pound-for-pound, the PacMan tests his limits again. He fights Oscar de la Hoya on December 6, 2008 at Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Most people consider this fight as a mismatch in Oscar's favor.
The Pacman believes he has a chance against the 10-time world champion and the biggest draw in professional boxing ever. For dreaming the way he does, Pacman has become a winner even before fighting his biggest fight come December 6.
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