Manny Pacquiao has never been as good at any weight class as Bernard Hopkins at middleweight?

Did you think after DLH-Hopkins "in four years time this 126 pounder called Paqcuaio will beat DLH at 147 lbs much worse than Hopkins did at 160"?.

I think most would have found that notion laughable, but it is what happened.

 

Certainly not. But 4 years is a long time in boxing.

Manny has had a truly exceptional career. But I don't rate his win over Oscar highly.

Again, he never fought the version of Oscar that Bernard did.

He looked visibly ill against Manny.

He looked shocking at the weigh-in, and he didn't rehydrate like he normally did.

Would Manny have easily beaten an early 00's version of Oscar? Not in my opinion.

 

You're missing the point. Give me the times someone at FW beat anyone more convincing than someone starting at LHW did.

And lots of people nowadays seem to treat it like a given that Pac would dominate DLH, but surprisingly they don't seem to have made any money from it. Are you the exception? Did you put money on Pac? Do you even have any posts on this forum pre fight where you predicted Pac would completely dominate DLH?

 

I'm not missing the point.

Again, Manny had an exceptional career. But your point is moot as they both fought very different versions of Oscar.

No, I didn't put money on.

I'm not a betting man.

We've discussed this before.

The signs were there in the Steve Forbes fight.

Then he looked visibly ill at the weigh-in.

Freddie Roach was very confident in Manny winning, as he knew that Oscar was faded. If you remember, he told everybody that Oscar was no longer capable of pulling the trigger. He also noted how poor Oscar had looked whilst sparring a smaller, faster fighter, in Ivan Calderon, whilst in camp preparing for the fight with Floyd. But he was very surprised by Oscar's fight night weight. He stated that Oscar normally rehydrated by 7-14 pounds, and he was expecting him to rehydrate by a lot as he hadn't made 147 pounds in almost a decade. Yet he only rehydrated by 2 pounds, and he says that he saw IV marks in Oscar's arm afterwards.

All things considered, Manny had better wins than that.

Your comparison would only carry weight and be impressive had they have fought around the same time.

 

So where are your posts where you predicted this?

After the fact BS means nothing to me. Hot air. That's all.

 

How is it BS?

Did you not see the weigh-in?

Did you not follow Oscar's career?

A guy who always rehydrated by significant amounts of weight, could only put on a few pounds. A few pounds, despite the fact that it was his lowest weight in almost a decade? You didn't think that was odd?

He looked gaunt.

He had declined and he hadn't made the weight healthily.

Your comparison with the Hopkins fight carries no weight.

 

So you predicted that Pac would beat the living **** out of him? And, if so, is it documented in any form? A simple yes or no will suffice.

 

When the fight was made, I didn't see it as the mismatch that most did, based upon his performance in the Steve Forbes fight. He looked flat in that fight, and visibly different from his previous fight against Floyd.

When I saw him at the weigh-in, he looked gaunt and ill. And when I found out his fight night weight I knew that it didn't look good for him.

People can change their opinions based upon knowledge that they know/gain.

Yes, the statement you originally made was true:

Manny Pacquiao beat Oscar easier than what Hopkins did.

Is it worth celebrating though, considering that they both fought different versions of the same guy?

I don't think so.

You don't need to make that statement in order to highlight Manny's greatness.

 

Hi Loudon, being a cynical old turnip I always wondered if Oscar was suffering from steroid withdrawals when he faced Forbes and Manny. He looked like a shell of a fighter as you said. I believe he would have roided up for his fights at 154 and 160. Say from 2001 to the Mayweather fight.

Oscar then took yet another one year break and looked bad against Forbes. A LOT worse than he did against Floyd a year previously. Against Manny he looked diabolical from a physical perspective.

Sugar Ray Leonard had the same look against both Norris and against Camacho. I also believe Ray was on the juice against Hagler, in the Hearns rematch and against Lalonde. Leonard had that same drained, frail appearance that Oscar did before his last two fights.

Of course all these are just the unproven suppositions of a long time boxing fan.

As far as the thread topic goes it’s a toss up for mine. The Hopkins who beat Trinidad would be a handful for any middleweight ever born but I would say the same for a prime Manny at 135-140 pounds.

I call it a draw.

Cheers All.

 

Top post.

 

Since you continue to evade my question, I take it that you didn't predict that Pac would beat him lika a drum.

You know why you didn't see it coming? Because it's a such a rare thing to do.

I think you should have the decency to not pretend that things you (and most others) couldn't predict really was a given beforehand. That's all I have to say about that.

 

I respectfully disagree with the post above. People are allowed to learn from new information. I say this having conservatively picked Pacquiao by decision in the fight in question, and many others on this forum had it closer to the mark, picking him by stoppage.
Pacquiao’s win over Oscar is not more impressive than Bernard’s, in my opinion. That win was to Hopkins like Pacquiao’s over Barrera- if you excuse the somewhat reaching analogy- a win over a faded great from a division or two below. Pacquiao’s was worse than Jones-Hopkins II- a fight where one of the participants no longer resembled what they used to be.

 

I don't think you can say this with confidence. I think Hopkins is a dick but in terms of defense, technical ability and ring generalship he is levels above Pacquaio. So head to head, which weight class, is Pacquaio top 5 of all time? Because Bhops is probably top 5 at middleweight and has an argument at LHW. Was Pacquaio even ever the best at any weight class? Maybe 122 but he didn't prove it against Guzman, maybe 140, except whenever JMM steps up to 140, Pac loses, or the judges lie about him losing. At 122 he dodged Guzman, at 126 he dodged Guzman and got schooled by JMM, at 130 he dodged Guzman, Raheem and got schooled by JMM. At 147 Mayweather was always better, Williams was better when he was there

I consider Pacquaio to have lost against Marquez 4 times and I'm not sure he was ever able to beat every man in a weight class. Great contests but they all had 1 winner, the 3rd being the most disgusting robbery and the reason JMM had to go for the KO in the 4th because there's no way the judges wouldn't give it to Pac otherwise. Against the great technicians he'd get undone. You have Freddy Roach on tape saying they won't fight Joan Guzman because it's a bad style match up.

And while Pacs resume looks **** hot on paper Morales was past his best, beat him and then got shut out against Raheem before Pacquaio won the rematch. And while Pacquaio looks like superman going up in weight and beating past greats in MAB/Morales, he was very carefully managed. There's a reason they waited 3 1/2 years until Marquez was 39 to offer the rubber match at 147, they thought he was past prime, which he probably was.

The thing about Pacquaio is he's a paper, scissors, paper boxer. I'd pick him against nearly any pressure guy, so Pryor and maybe Chavez. Put him in with slow come forward pressure guys and he'll look like a million dollars. Put him in with a defensive counter puncher and he'll look out of his depth. Jeff Horn shows that

 

But there were no new information after the weigh-in. If he looked that terrible weighing in you and Loudon should have predicted an easy win for Pac. Neither of you did and since then there has been no new information.

You aren't seriously comparing Hopkin's win over DLH to Pac's first win over Barrera, are you? Because in that case Pac was the one moving up to 126, where Barrera had been for a while with some top wins. So Pac was the smaller fighter dominating the larger one.

DLH on the other hand only had one win, that most considered a loss, at MW and while Hopkins stopped him, he didn't dominate him.

That you make such a comparison shows that you have no sense of proportion imo.

And the Hopkins-Jones 2 comparison is also way off. Jones and Hopkins were the same size. Pac was a former FW CHAMPION. He was giving up some 5 inches to DLH ffs. It's very, very off to compare this to Hopkins-Jones. I'm pretty sure Hopkins was the favourite going in, for that very reason, and he he didn't dominate and stop Jones.

If Pac was a career WW that beat that version of DLH in a clear but not one-sided fashion it wouldn't have been very special. But this was a former FW who demolished him. That's the difference you seem to miss for some reason.

Tell me which FWs today you see coming up and beating the **** out of Crawford, Spence or even Porter at WW in 5-10 years time.

 

Hi mate, there could be some truth to your opinion.

I'm not sure.

It's something to ponder.

Both Roach and Floyd Snr were both expecting Oscar to rehydrate by a large amount. So to find out that he'd only put on 2 pounds was a big shock. His face looked terrible at the weigh-in.

Manny is one of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport. But I can't give him much credit for his win over Oscar.