Can Pacquiao become the GOAT?

He is definitely closer to the 50 mark and even higher for me.. Starting where he did and going all the way up , beating everybody with that resume is something that has not been accomplished in boxing, only by a select few as I can recall

 

He can improve his standing, but not the GOAT.

Top 20 at most.

 

He could certainly get damn high tho never top 5 i would think. He's certainly helping his cause for ascension and will be remembered extremely highly. The good news for him is that he has nothing to lose at this point due to age and career stage - he can only gain. On a side note Thurman didn't overly impress me as a fighter.

 

Certainly one of the lower weight Champ s ever imo .

 

If he beats Spence and Crawford he's probably in the reckoning imo. Don't think he will, though

He's quite possibly top 10 as it is. But it's hard to say, since there are so many ways you can slice ranking criteria. What would hold him back is mostly the trouble he had with Marquez imo. That he lost to a bigger ATG like Floyd when both were past their primes weighs less heavily for me.

 

Should we hold Ali back because of his struggles with Frazier and Norton?

 

Ali was past his prime for those while Pac certainly certainly was in his prime for the first two Marquez fights. But even so Ali's struggles with Frazier and Norton does hold him back a bit. If he had won those fights clearly he'd be the nr 1 HW without any doubt. As it is now Louis has a good case as well.

 

29 and past his prime seems a little bit of a stretch even with the layoff and in the HW division. I think what happened is he just got totally worked by Frazier. Did not have the power or inside game to keep Frazier off of him. And I rate Ali highly.

Frazier up until that time was by far the best opponent of Ali's career. The step up in class was a big factor.

 

Again, Not even close. People are getting ahead of themselves.. We are continuing to see the shift in the sport which has been happening for many many years … These guys( in General) are just not active enough and are being coddled and brought along to fight once or twice a year with the most picky match making possible. Thurman had 29 fights in 12 years going in, what's so impressive about that?? And no better example is the HW division, where the top guys aren't really fighting each other and they all deliver(AJ, Wilder, and Fury) rather weak performances when their competition gets stiffer for them... Can anyone tell me how many times Spence, Crawford, and Thurman have fought each other? Aren't these guys the best in their division.. It was a good win for Pac, but then he gives the performane that he did against May .. Tells you how great Floyd is btw ,, but this win for Pac for me is what I am talking about, Pac is a warrior, always has been a very active fighter, fighting everyone because he always wanted to prove he is the best , and Boxing today is just not about that anymore

 

No he's not.

 

I don't think a fighter recovers completely from such a long lay-off and most at the time didn't think Ali was what he had been. Patterson and Chuvalo, who faced him both before and after his lay-off, have testified to Ali not being the same after the lay-off. Dundee, Pacheco, Ali himself and Cus D'amato all agreed. So this, for once, isn't revisionism after the fact. It was widely accepted at the time. I also don't think six months was enough to get him back to his maximum level after the lay-off. Thurman, who had been away just two years, said before the fight that he would need until next year to be up to the task of facing Spence or Crawford.

What is revisionism after the fact is that Frazier would be a class above the Liston Ali beat. Liston came off of his two best performances and no one at the time thought he was there for the taking.

 

There are people here who say Roberto Duran is the GOAT, so yeah, Pacquiao will have his supporters in that regard.

I'd put them both outside of the top 10 p4p personally, probably outside the top 20.

 

He could improve on that by beating the likes of Spence and Crawford. He could then crack the TOP 10. But I do not see it happening.