tough question philla. skillwise, pac is ever improving. he will never reach his peak in that area. physically, pac has reached a plateau. i can't remember the last time i saw pac to be the bigger man in the ring. 140 will probably be his biggest weight, the weight where the tradeoff between his size, power and speed relative to his opponent is at the edge of balance. he will from now on always be the smaller guy with only his power and speed compensating for that. biologically and ring agewise, pac is on the down slope of his bell curve. by all accounts, his last fights should have accelerated that process if he wasn't so good in avoiding majority of his bigger opponents shots. this fight with cotto even if he wins might be the one to do that. imho he should fight floyd soonest before the roller coaster down accelerates too much. but i still pray pac continues to defy logic.
He's at his peak now. The man keeps going in with something new we didn't think he had, when you're past your prime you can't do that.
I believe he is at his peak right now I believe team pac knows this too and Manny is looking to retire very soon.
The fact is Pac is no Morales nor Barrera, nor even Marquez. The higher he goes up in weight, he gets better. He's at his peak. He's one of a kind and I agree w/ the observation that he's a freak of nature.
The best ive ever seen him look was the david diaz/oscar fights.... my only concern would be that freddie isnt taking too much out of him in sparring as i heard its been getting pretty hardcore, with freddy paying extra to anyone who can knock manny down (and hes usually sparring bigger opponents) but sometimes more can be taken from a fighter in the gym then the ring (as pac has hardly taken any damage in his last 3 or so fights)
if anything he has only just entered his prime. he was pretty much a 1 handed fighter at 122 that just came forward throwing a jab behind a left hand. Since then he has developed into so much more.