Decrepit 40 Year Old Manny Pacquiao Is Currently Perhaps The Best Welterweight On The Planet.

Sorry in advance if this is a bit disjointed, its 5 in the morning and I'm tired.

No, I'm not being tongue in cheek, I'm being literal. As much as most want to go on and on endlessly, about Manny being a shot to hell shell of his former self and that he's scared to fight this one or that one. Its all a crock of bull****, alongside people getting caught up in the moment, and up in their own lofty expectations that they set far too high for certain thus far, still fairly unproven fighters.

Manny Pacquiao is still the best active Welterweight on the planet, and should be considered even money in a match with all 4 of the biggies. Thurman, Spence, Crawford and Porter, now granted, stylistically he doesn't mesh all that well with Bud and One Time, but the other two he'd have more than a good fighting chance against.

Now let's look at this for a minute and analyze.

Bud's resume at Welterweight:
Jeff Horn - Well he stopped Horn and Pac lost to Horn, so I guess that means Bud is better than Manny right? No, it doesn't. It means that Manny is tiny and Horn is massive and is currently fighting at 154 and could probably go up even higher, and just stopped Mundine in 1, well the version that fought Bud had a rough go of it, he barely made weight for the Corcoran fight, got cut, struggled to make weight again for their match, and had to deal with people giving him the runaround in Vegas. He wasn't physically or mentally probably up for the task at that moment . But Bud beat him, he deserves credit for it, good for him.

But getting back to my triangle theory debunking, Maidana got schooled by Alexander, went on to arguably draw with Floyd, then Devon Alexander lost a hard fought war with Berto, so Berto should do well against Floyd too right? Nope Berto still got schooled.... also Berto was brutally KTFO by Soto Karass who was brutally KTFO by Maidana. See how silly triangle theories are. Styles make fights, Horn is huge and awkward and has a weird rhythm, Bud dealt with that rhythm better than Pac did, simple as that.

Jose Benavidez - The guy was coming off of being ****ing shot in the leg, he was hobbling around and looked like Peg Leg Pete in there, his best "win" as a pro was against Herrera, who IMO and many others, actually beat Benavidez by a 116-112 margin.

That's it.. not all that impressive right?

Errol's resume at Welterweight:
Kell Brook - Coming off of a proper pasting at the hands of GGG up at Middleweight, Kell who should've stayed up around 154, but instead dropped down 13 pounds, of mostly muscle, still managed to give Errol fits for the first 6 or 7 rounds, then sadly suffered an injury to the other eye, was it caused by a headclash? Possibly. Regardless, Brook's best win was against Porter, who he wrestled more than he actually boxed, but its a fine win for Earl nonetheless.

Lamont Peterson - I really like Lamont, he's a great guy and an overachiever, and he usually does well against the also-rans in whatever division he's fighting in, yeah he gave Ortiz and Khan hell, because they just aren't that good. Whenever it comes time to truly step up, he's kind of average and usually falters. Lamont should have taken an L at the hands of Felix Diaz, yet another southpaw pressure fighter, a style he doesn't perform well against. Okay win, but nothing special.

Chris Algieri - Solid win for Errol, but he was coming off of 3 really tough fights in a row, while he beat Ruslan, it was grueling, the Manny match was brutal, the Khan match was impressive, but he looked average against Bone. That being said, guys who cut off he ring well are nightmares for Chris, he was Errol's perfect opponent.

Showtime's resume at Welterweight:
Losses to Thurman and Brook.

Danny Garcia - Brilliant performance, he did as well as Mauricio Herrera, and a little better than Lamont Peterson and Robert Guerrero. Thankfully he like Thurman actually got credit for it. Top win at WW.

Adrien Broner - Did an admirably good job against AB, dominated him thoroughly, sadly the last round messed that near perfect performance up, good win though.

Andre Berto - Stylistic nightmare for Berto, who was coming off of a layoff and a few beatings. Berto was very much done when they fought.

Adrian Granados - Far more competitive than it should've been, Granados closed very well. Underwhelming performance..

Paulie Malignaggi - Horrible style clash for the Magic Man, everyone with half a brain should have realized Paulie was going to get major league ****ed up in that one, and he was. But, not bad.

Devon Alexander - Another solid domination at the hands of Shawn, his breakout performance.


One Time's resume at Welterweight:
Danny Garcia - Great win, and Brilliant performance, he did as well as Mauricio Herrera, and a little better than Lamont Peterson and Robert Guerrero. Thankfully he like Porter actually got credit for it. Top win at WW.

Shawn Porter - Great win, one of the best at WW, although he didn't beat him quite as clearly or as impressively as Kell Brook did.

Robert Guerrero - Thurman did almost as well as Floyd, aside from that whole last three rounds part when Guerrero got up from being dropped hard and like a man possessed came after him raging, rocking him a few times in the process. Good win.

Jesus Soto Karass - Decent win, but he was coming off of being destroyed by Rosado, Maidana and a war with Berto.

Luis Collazo - Looked bad against Luis, who was coming off of being schooled by Khan, but aside from the one bad body shot, he got him out of there. Okay win.


MANNY PACQUIAO'S resume at Welterweight:
Lost to Jeff Horn - Competitive throughout, while I scored it for Jeff, it was highly disputed.

Lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. - Held his own, won 4 maybe 5 rounds with a bad shoulder, did better than Canelo. Let me repeat.... with only one good shoulder.

Lost to Tim Bradley - Utter Bull****

Adrien Broner - Dominant uncompetitive near shutout. Beat him more impressively than anyone to date.

Lucas Matthysse - A demolition job, more impressively than Danny Garcia and Viktor Postol. Granted, La Maquina had seen better days.

Jessie Vargas - Dominant uncompetitive near shutout over Vargas who was coming off of destroying Sadam Ali, who went on to beat Cotto.

Timothy Bradley - Retired Timmy with this one it was so dominant.

Timothy Bradley - Took Timmy's 0 officially with this one. This is Tim coming off of schooling Marquez, who KTFO6 Manny.

Brandon Rios - Did better boxing wise against a prime Rios than Danny did against the corpse of Rios.

Chris Algieri - Chris coming off of Ruslan schooling, went on to arguably do enough to upset Khan, he was dropped multiple times by Pac and lost a ridiculously wide decision.


So really.....

Which is the most impressive out of this lineup?

Bud - Horn, Benavidez
Errol - Brook, Peterson, Algieri
Thurman - Garcia, Porter, Guerrero, Collazo, Soto Karass
Porter - Garcia, Broner, Granados, Berto, Alexander, Malignaggi - Lost to Thurman, Brook
Pacquiao - Broner, Matthysse, Vargas, Bradley, Bradley, Rios, Algieri - Lost to Horn, Mayweather

Manny even in this "past it old shot to hell shell of his former self", is still better than 99% of active fighters. The reason everyone says he's past it is because he phones it in most of the time, think about that for a second, he's just going through the motions, against guys in their 20's. Barely breaking a sweat. Its that easy for him..... That's ****ing insane.

There's an analogy I like to make to some of my geek friends about filmmakers. If you isolate the bad films made by great directors, and instead said they were directed by a hip young upstart, that hip young upstart would automatically be praised and considered the next big thing by every trendy douchbag in sight. And why is that? Its because when someone performs at the highest level imaginable for so long, when they "lose a step" that step that they supposedly lost is often times based around an ill perceived exaggeration, due to the expectations put upon the said great filmmaker being far too high for every upcoming film he makes.

If you set the bar incredibly high for some people, eventually everything they do will look insufficient, because you hold them to such a high standard.

But when you set the bar low for everyone else, their minimal so so average accomplishments are frequently blown out of proportion by the adoring masses willing to forgive their every flaw, because they've been deemed the second coming.

Boxing is very much a expectation game and you usually end up taking away from a match whatever it is you want to see. You bring all that baggage from your past experiences and project that into the ring, and that can shade our perceptions of reality far more often than we think.

That is the Manny Pacquiao of today in a nutshell.

Our old lion director Manny Pacquaio has just been phoning it lately with brilliant Oscar worthy films that are Hugo, The Departed, Silence, The Aviator or Gangs Of New York level, and not Goodfellas and Taxi Driver level. **** him... he should retire.

Meanwhile if Spence or Thurman directed Hugo, The Departed, Silence, The Aviator or Gangs Of New York, they'd be saying they were the next Scorsese and geniuses.

See what I'm getting at here?

Manny is still Il Capo Tutti Di Capi. Until one of these young lions knock him convincingly off his throne and only until then, he should still be given the praise and respect he deserves, instead of being written off as a spent force, which couldn't be further from the truth.

He's making these young punks look like amateurs, and he's barely breaking a sweat. What a BEAST.

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Pac vs. Benavidez, Brook, Peterson, Garcia, Guerrero, Collazo, Soto Karass, Granados, Berto, Alexander, Malignaggi.

I wonder how these would play out?

 

He has nothing left to prove, and doesn't have to fight any of these young guns, and he probably should retire. But selfishly I really want to see him take on at least one of this new big four.

 

What? You don't think Pac can summon a Wlad against AJ type performance against a so so puncher like Spence? Its not like Spence is unbeatable, had Brook not suffered the eye injury, its likely Spence would have taken a loss.