A little bit of me felt all wrong all over when he retired. But then again people usually pay attention to what one does, not in the past. I've been following him a bit for his bid to become president but tbh it's like the fight game forgot about him. He needs ways to make himself relevant again, unless he likes the unambiguousness for once. Like I said it was weird when he retired, the end of an era of superbowl s everytime he fought.
Leonard was like 23 when he lost to Duran. Green as a bullfrog. Everyone knows fighters aren't ready for the elites until whatever age Tank decides to step up.
@AdamT Duran will not break Pac. You severely underestimate Pacquiao's punnch resistance. LW Duran weighed less than 140. WW Duran weighed less than 150. Pacquiao looks weak against men who cut water down from 160.
Pac is absolutely appreciated, more than enough. You know how many great fighters have laced up over the last 100+ years? He makes most peoples' top 25 lists and pretty much everyone's top 50. It gets silly when people start placing him in the top 10 or as the GOAT, that to me is being overly appreciated. Firstly, Pac was considered to be a small welterweight which affords him plenty of credit for his exploits at 140+. I'll also give him credit for his fan-friendly style and offensive prowess in the sense that he could be relentless, would use his excellent footwork to find angles and set traps and could really sit down on his shots and he wasn't a fighter who could be taken lightly at any second. Beating Pac was not an easy night's work for anyone. However, as the poster George Crowcroft pointed out not so long ago, he was big at lightweight and below so when he was fighting at 126-135 he wasn't a flyweight beating up bigger men, he had just grown into his frame, so the narrative of the humble little guy isn't completely accurate, or accurate at all at the lower weights. It removes some of his underdog aura. Also the constant badgering for catchweights by Roach was irritating. It's one thing for a fighter to use them once or twice but so many of these fights were at catchweight and the 150 catchweight for LMW shouldn't count as a title. He has signature wins against Ledwaba, Barrera x2, Morales (2 of 3), Marquez x2 +1 draw (controversially at times, though he didn't lose all 4 fights like some people say), Cotto (catchweight of 145 but good win nonetheless because of the manner in which he won), Mosley (shell, wanted him at a catchweight before he showed signs of decline) Margarito (catchweight of 150 for a belt, post-glove loading) and Bradley (2-1 although probably should be 3-0). Maybe Thurman if you're pushing it but Thurman won't be looked on as a good champion in years to come. It's difficult to give him too much credit for the wins against a sickly Oscar (not sure what Oscar was thinking there... well, money) and Hatton who was riddled with now well-known problems outside of the ring prior to the fight. You also have to take his one-sided loss against PFP rival Mayweather into account. So you can take the good/the bad, give him a ton of credit for being undersized at 140 and above and say that on balance, he was one of the best of his era and therefore somewhere around 20-30 on these mythical lists. The 8 division stuff is as a consequence of him starting as a scrawny (starving, actually) 16 year old instead of the more common amateur routes. If you take away the amateur careers of many boxers and threw them in at 16 years of age, nearly all of them would have extra divisions on their CV. When people parrot the 8 division stuff and say that automatically makes him the GOAT, it does tend to get people's backs up because of all that and also because the LMW title was a bit of a farce at 150 against a Margarito who had just been wrecked by Mosley and was soon to face that same fate against Cotto.
I'm preparing a NYE dish (braised pork belly), but rest assured I'll destroy your post when it's all prepped for the long cook.
Nah I think being a champ in 8 divisions holds a tremendous amount of weight, that's not the typical oh he went up 3 weightclasses kind of feat we see reasonably often nowadays. That's a "Never been done and probably won't be for many generations" kind of feat.
What are you talking about? There was, and still is, a lot of talk about Pacquiao. What more do you expect? People to sit around talking about a retired boxer every day of the week? People will talk about what's topical, first and foremost.
