Which fight (s) would you say was the absolute peak of Pacman's career? I think it's the Hatton/Cotto fights circa 09. What say you?
I probably agree with you…he seemed to be at the best of every aspect of his game at that point. He was still winning fights that I didn’t fancy him in either…Cotto for one, but the way he handled Margarito surprised me. I also loved his demolition of Barrera, where he just kept finding more and more gears to go through, like Aaron Pryor. He was much more the complete article in ‘09 though.
The night he beat Cotto NOT because: Cotto was drained, Miguel damaged his ear with a left hook, Cotto was the bigger man, PAC was moving up in weight, after 6 rounds it was still even... My thoughts are: Miguel was culminating to a new part of his career as so far gone away from proper technique and sailing the captain spot of his own ship... I believe if I remember correctly that the late Emmanuel steward took over promptly... He said "they had to take him back to basics, boxing 101" like keeping his chin tucked when jabbing, foot work with out crossing legs, and protecting his temples after punching, and so on and so forth. Don't get me wrong he was still good. But Emmanuel helped him to fix these imperfections to a certain degree up un till Freddie Roach did the same thing even more so. Fred said he wish the Cotto / Freddie team was met sooner, probably coulda had more fights together, shoulda woulda. He gave a good account under coach Freddie, and Manny as well.
I think his absolute peak started to begin after destroying Morales in their 3rd fight, all the way up to the Margarito fight. So i would say between 2006-2010 ? Morales 3, Diaz, Hatton, Cotto, Margarito, ODLH, all standout performances during that period.
