Bert Sugars old skool breakdown.......

The talk of the boxing world has still been about Manny Pacquiao’s impressive twelve round battering of brave challenger Antonio Margarito last weekend at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. With the victory Pacquiao netted the WBC junior middleweight championship, his eighth weight class in which has claimed a belt, and left the masses amazed after controlling his much larger foe with his speed, fluidity and deceptive power.
One man who had been eyeing the contest for quite some time while relishing the opportunity to take in the event from ringside was boxing historian Bert Sugar, who makes the rounds on a yearly basis covering the world’s best fighters and biggest events. Asked for his thoughts on his time in Dallas, Sugar concedes that the fight may have been a mismatch but was still very much worth everyone's time.
“It wasn’t a great fight,” Sugar said upon returning home to New York. “It was a great virtuoso performance by Pacquiao. He dominated expect for one punch in the sixth round from Margarito that hurt him. He dominated the fight. He couldn’t hit him and it was a one-sided ass whooping was what it was.”
Pacquiao’s last two contests have taken place at Cowboys Stadium after a string of stirring performances in

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, Nevada, where he defeated the likes of Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto amongst others. After taking in all of the festivities during Pacquiao’s March drubbing of Joshua Clottey as well as the action last weekend, Sugar admits that there is a completely different vibe in the Lone Star State.
“40,000 people make more noise than 23,000 to begin with,” Sugar mused. “And it was an excited and an excitable crowd who applauded and cheered everything that Pacquiao did. And if you had any friends in Manila there was no need to call them because they were all there at the fight.”
The attention has of course turned to Pacquiao’s immediate future in the sport, as it is presumed he will be returning to campaign in the welterweight division after a grueling albeit one-sided battle with Margarito. Asked who he would prefer to Manny face next, Sugar insists he hasn’t fully lost his interest in the potential matchup that has captured the public’s interest for over a year’s time.
“I’d love to see a Manny and Floyd [Mayweather] fight,” Sugar said of the Las Vegas-based superstar. “When it was about to be made twice over it was the most anticipated fight since Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns, it just never happened. But I do think it is one of the fights I would like to look forward to. The question now becomes where does he go? What does Pacquiao do? Where is Floyd? These are all questions in the boxing fans eyes. Somehow, someway, somewhere if that fight isn’t made, boxing loses.”
Unfortunately a Pacquiao-Mayweather meeting may never come off as Floyd’s future is extremely uncertain given his current legal woes. I ran a list of other formidable champions and contenders by Sugar and he seems to think the most logical choice is right in front of us.
“I conceivably could see the winner, at a catch weight, of Saturday’s fight between [Paul] Williams and Sergio Martinez being exciting enough for Pacquiao,” Sugar said. “I just don’t think that ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley would raise the interest in the fight crowd. We’re looking for big fights from Pacquiao right now. And you got to have a marquee name and it has to be outside of the framework of just the hardcore boxing fans in order to make it feasible. Pacquiao got fifteen million dollars for the fight Saturday night. Where are they going to find that the next time?”
Again taking place at Atlantic City, the rematch between Williams and Martinez is one of the year’s most intriguing fights, as the two men engaged in a thrilling battle last year that saw the two southpaws trade knockdowns in the first round before attacking each other with great fervor the remaining eleven stanzas. Williams was awarded with a majority decision win but Sugar saw things the other way.
“I had Martinez winning,” Sugar claimed. “I just thought he did more. Paul Williams didn’t fight the fight that everyone hoped he could fight. Maybe he will this time but Paul Williams was hurt several times. He didn’t show the explosiveness, except in the first round and then he got knocked down himself. So if Paul Williams is the Paul Williams we hope he is than he will do better.”
All one has to do is take a glimpse of Martinez for a few seconds inside of the ring to spot the great talent for which he possesses but he raised his stock to a new level with his gutsy victory over former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik in April. Elaborating further on Martinez, you can tell just how intrigued Sugar is by his style.
“Martinez is one heck of a fighter,” Sugar continued. “He’s the most unorthodox fighter I have seen since Prince Naseem. And he has power to boot. He took Pavlik apart. Martinez looks like he took a four-way cold tablet and he’s running three more ways to catch up with it. I don’t know where he is in the ring and that’s what makes him exciting, interesting and fun to watch.”
The Williams-Martinez rematch is at a contracted weight of 158 pounds and what was alarming was the fact that the Argentinean stylist came in weighing 176 last month for the 30-day weight check in advance of the fight. Martinez followed that up by tipping the scales at 166 pounds for the seven day weight check which means he will be spending much of this week simply trying to cut pounds instead of focusing on the fight. Sugar knows fully well that weight loss can be a huge issue for a fighter but doesn’t know Martinez well enough to know how much impact it will have on the fight.
“Oh I think it’s a problem,” the always blunt Sugar said. “The question now becomes can he handle the problem? Some fighters are drained by making weight. I don’t know enough about Martinez and his problems of late to know if it is a problem.”
At this time last year Williams seemed to be the center of much more discussion and his 2010 calendar year has been disappointing thus far, with only an odd technical decision over Kermit Cintron this past May to his credit. Now 29 years old, Sugar feels that this is an essential fight for Williams if he is to ever live up to the hype that first surrounded him years ago.
“This is a fight that Paul Williams has to make. This is his crossroads fight. He’s the bigger name, at least in America. There have been great hopes held for him and if he can’t come away from this fight with a win then a lot of those hopes are going to go away. Williams has more to lose than Martinez in this fight. There’s going to be a point where the potential becomes past potential and he never really became that great fighter that many thought he was going to be. I think Saturday night is that chance for him.”