By Manuel Perez: One of the problems that has haunted boxing for the past several years is that fighters are becoming more and more hesitant to take on the best opponents in their weight classes. This in effect has caused fighters to build up excellent records based on wins over limited fighters.
Now, Manny Pacquiao appears not to be immune from that practice having fought a number if easy opponents in the past few years rather than stepping it up against top opposition. Instead of fighting rematches with an excellent fighter like Juan Manuel Marquez, we have Pacquiao fighting an over-the-hill, weight drained Oscar De La Hoya and a near defenseless Ricky Hatton.
Even before that, Pacquiao selected fighters like lightweight David Diaz rather than arguably more dangerous fighters like Nate Campbell and Juan Diaz. Boxing has been suffering in the past few years because of fighters taking on lesser opponents, which is why it’s so disappointing for me to see Pacquiao cherry picking his opponents instead of going after the best fighter in every division.
I hate cherry pickers. Unfortunately, most of the time they don’t have to pay for it by losing boxing fans, because only a small segment of them have any clue about who’s good or not good in any given division. As such, the fighters are generally given a free pass for their cherry picking ways. However, with any negative aversive practice like this, there is a high cost.
And that is the fighter gets used to fighting lesser fighters and isn’t able to grow as a fighter. It’s like practicing math. Sure, it’s probably easier to mess around with Algebra rather than Calculus, but when you eventually have to sit in for a midterm in Calculus, you’re likely not going to be ready if you’ve been playing it safe toying with algebra.
This is why I feel that Pacquiao’s cherry picking of opponents will ultimately come back and smack him in the face when he steps in the ring with Miguel Cotto on November 14th. Cotto is the best opponent that Pacquiao has faced since his gift 12 round split decision over Marquez last year. And I think it’s going to be a step too far for the quality rusty Pacquiao.
Although Pacquiao and his team have made every effort to give him the advantage in this fight by forcing Cotto to fight at a 145 pound catch weight, I still think Pacquiao is going to get slaughtered by Cotto. The reason is simple. Pacquiao has grown soft on his diet of over the hill, defenseless and mediocre opponents and will be in shock when he steps in the ring against a real quality fighter in the 28-year-old Cotto.
All those wins that Pacquiao has accumulated in the past few years over shot and weak fighters will come back and haunt him against Cotto, because he won’t be ready. If I was Pacquiao’s trainer and promoter, I would have kept him busy fighting the best fighters, not the easy ones. And so what if he failed? At least we’d know what Pacquiao’s actual limit is as a fighter and wouldn’t have to worry about inflating his record artificially.
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