Manny Pacquiao – the best fighter ever?!

With all due respect to Andy Warhol, we live in a world now where anyone can cultivate a lifetime of fame.  This means that, on any given day, Snooki from The Jersey Shore or one of Tiger’s mistresses can seem every bit as worthy of fame as Tina Fey or Kate Middleton.

This might seem an unfair context in which to assess the success of Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, but there’s no gainsaying the whimsy with which we attach greatness to people these days. For only this explains why so many people are buying into this particular bit of hype:

I will go on record, and I really believe, that Manny Pacquiao is the best fighter that I’ve ever seen. And that includes Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, and Marvin Hagler, the best fighter that I’ve ever seen.  I have never ever seen anything like him…

Ray Leonard is a great friend of mine and he was a great fighter, but he doesn’t compare to Manny Pacquiao, in my opinion. Ray had great, great skills, great heart, and he was a tremendous fighter, but he didn’t have the same type of extraordinary skills that Pacquiao has.

(Top Rank Promoter Bob Arum, November 19, 2009)

Admittedly, Pacquiao (aka Pac-Man) seemed truly invincible on Saturday night as he pummeled former welterweight champion Antonio Margarito to win the junior middleweight title at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.  And when one considers that this marked his unprecedented eighth divisional title – spanning weight classes from 106 to 150 pounds – it’s tempting to concede that he might really be “the greatest of all time.”

But I’m not prepared to make that concession.  Not least because I too have seen all of the great champions who Arum dismisses as mere contenders. And I have yet to see any fighter display the combination of power, speed, and style (or poetry in motion) that Muhammad Ali did in his prime.

Of course, it might seem silly on its face to be comparing a heavyweight like Ali at 215 pounds with a junior middleweight like Pacquiao at 150.

For the sake of argument, however, in a match between both fighters in their prime, I doubt even Arum would deny that Ali would put even more of a beating on Pacquiao than Pacquiao put on Margarito on Saturday night. Actually, pitting Pacquiao against Ali would be like pitting a little barracuda against a great white shark.

But I would go further, on the record, in declaring that even Sugar Ray Leonard, himself a junior middleweight champion, should rank above Pacquiao in the pantheon of great fighters.

For no fighter in the lighter weight classes has emulated Ali’s remarkable combination of power, speed, and style than Sugar Ray.

More to the point, just as Ali proved his mettle against the best fighters of his day, including bull dogs like Smokin’ Joe Frazier and giants like George Forman, Sugar Ray did the same against Tommy “Hitman” Hearns and Marvin Hagler.

Meanwhile, Pacquiao’s stellar record is distinguished only by beating up former Golden Boy Oscar de la Hoya long after his prime – when he was clearly more interested in parading around in drag (complete with wig, panties, fishnet stockings and pumps) than in suiting up for the gladiatorial sport of boxing:

[I]t could only have added insult to his injury that the person who finally forced De la Hoya into overdue retirement was not even a marquee fighter like Floyd Mayweather. Instead, it was a little-known Filipino named Manny Pacquiao who ended things for De la Hoya, mercifully, by knocking him out in the eighth round.

(Golden Boy ends career in ignominy, The iPINIONS Journal, December 8, 2008)

But nothing demonstrates how unworthy he is of Arum’s praise quite like Pacquiao doing everything possible to avoid getting into the ring with the man generally regarded as “the best pound-for-pound fighter” in the world today, Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Frankly, I am mindful that Pacquiao was supposed to be fighting Mayweather, not the journeyman Margarito, on Saturday. But he chickened out when Mayweather insisted that they both submit to Olympic level random drug testing in the weeks and days before the fight. Which makes one wonder whether Pacquiao’s much vaunted power stems more from performance-enhancing drugs than from Rocky-Balboa style training.

Finally, if none of my arguments convince you that Arum’s contention is bullshit, just bear in mind that he’s Pacquiao’s fight promoter.  And, as any promoter knows, hype – no matter how absurd – sells.

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