After rewatching Pac-Marquez II and Pac-Morales I,II,III...

I disagree with most of this, outside of the fairly obvious facts that with age and weight gain, his speed has diminished somewhat. Which still means he has some of the fastest hands in the sport, so we can take that for what it's worth.

It's fine to appreciate the truly excellent fights Manny waged closer to his more natural weight, but you are making a number of massive oversights. One, Manny's achievements recently have made all of us a little deadened to the importance of weight classes. Most fighters, even legitimately great ones, are limited to a small range of effective weights, beyond which they simply can't compete as effectively. Manny is a once in a generation freak in this regard. It puts him in select company with probably only ten to twenty other men in the entire history of the sport. This alone makes his domination of bigger fighters, whatever their weaknesses, remarkable, and in some ways more impressive than what he did previously.

Two, you are magnifying the significance of the Marquez fights. All great fighters have that one guy who can give them fits. Marquez is the DeJesus to Manny's Duran. But the fact that he gave Manny tough fights doesn't mean that everyone Manny has demolished since, sucks. It means he is another great fighter who has a blend of abilities (south of 140 at least), that give Manny trouble.

Three, Manny has obviously advanced technically and in physical strength since Morales I. No one can argue otherwise. Take him from Morales I, drop him in the ring with anyone other than maybe Hatton, even "shot" Oscar, and he loses. He is making "lesser fighters" look silly not because they suck, but because he has become that frighteningly good.

Even if it has resulted in his opponents looking like crap, I'm pretty sure that Manny hit the peak of his powers the night he destroyed Cotto. The Marquez and Morales fights might be fun to watch, but they aren't showing Manny at his best.

 

I know, it's ****ing beyond ridiculous. Are these people blind, deluded, or just plain old thick as pig****???

 

This is the only sensible part of your post, really.

Even the techniques that Pac employed on the fight against Margarito ALONE completely blows the Pac version of the MAB, JMM and Morales fights COMBINED as far as techniques are concerned.
More athletic, hell yeah.
More quality opposition, you got that right.
But better version of Pac? You got to be kidding me.:rofl

His right hand was still on its infancy stage then (peaked on the Hatton match), his footwork still developing (I believe it peaked on the ODLH fight), his timing not very impressive (compared to how it fared against ODLH and onwards), and well, don't even get me started with his stupid balance every time he throws a power punch back on his fights at lightweight and below (watch the Margarito fight and you will see tremendous improvement compared even to JMM 2).

 

you better watch it again.

 

Its kind of amazing actually, normaly a guy like that reaches his ceiling around the 130 days and after a few losses retire, still a atg but thats it.
Pac adds a extra dimension to his legacy by picking up another 4 titles in different division, cleaning out 147 and be on a 13 fight winning streak. For a small guy that started at 106 thats one hell of a accomplishment. Its already good if he would be able to compete above 135, yet he is dominating it. Besides floyd who didnt show up who should he have fought at welter?berto instead of mosley is the only thing thats comes to mind. People just want to discredit every win. Eventually pac will lose it could happen every fight now that he is in his 30´s almost all guys he fought had more then a punchers chance, once he retires in 10 years people will look back and think he is epic.

 

I agree with this part. Too much gets made of how much Manny has improved, but what remains unsaid is that he was fighting the highest caliber of fighter in those days. It's hard to look like the killer he does at welterweight when you're fighting someone like JMM, EM and MAB.

 

agree. and that makes pac a great fighter.

 

Fading Pac cherrypicks Dela Hoya, Cotto, Hatton, Clottey, Margarito and now Mosley.

I wonder what a prime Pac would do to them. :deal

 

so hatton, cotto and clottey are nobodies now..

 

One of the best posts I've seen in a while. :good

Pac is still in his prime but not really at his peak.

His focus and dedications were gone. Roach used to be the one holding him back in training. The last few fights, Roach had to fly him to Wild Card
gym just so he focuses on training.

The Pac at 130 down did not rest on the ropes for breather. When he was not on the attack, he was moving al the time. Pac's stamina was somehow still good enough to beat the guys at 140 up.

 

They were "genuine threats" and would "KTFO" Pac before the Pacman slaughtered them all tho, according to the same losers who now proclaim that these fighters were shot before they faced Pac.:deal

 

This. Very solid post.

 

Yup Pacquiao's stronger right hand is noticeable. Before Pacquiao never stunned or KD people with a single shot counter right hook. But looking at Pacquiao's fight against Cotto, Hatton and Margarito you will see how devastating Pacquiao's right hook counter.

Another thing is before when Pacquiao get hits with a strong punch, he always lose his balance. But it never happen now.

Pacquiao is like MJ and Kobe, when they got older their skills improved.

 

One thing about pacquiao that annoys me is that when you throw a uppercut it 90% of the time lands flush, I was schocked to see clottey land it on a regular basis whenever he came out of his shell. I remember cotto and margarito also landing it.
Maidana figured khan out and started landing it with regularity on him. I wonder if this is a roach fighter thing? He should make them cover it up.

 

This gets overlooked a lot of times. I don't even think there's an equivalent of those three at welter.