Did Manny Pacquiao Skip The Lightweight Division Too Quickly ?

I'd have liked to see these fights, but realistically, the prospect of fighting Oscar and moving up to welter was more tantalising than all of those put together, and that's what we got. I can't be mad at big fights being put together. And it's an era where not all big fights get made.

 

It's hard to say. I don't see De La Hoya fight as important fight in Pacquiao's legacy, but on the other hand it took him to another level in terms of stardom - so it opened up the door for him to all the big fights that came after at welterweight. I think when opportunity came to fight Oscar, He had to take it and when He succeeded, He didn't see the point of going back down. I think commercially, 140-147 fights were bigger. Probably beating guys like Cotto, Clottey and Hatton was also bigger for his legacy than beating whoever He could beat at lightweight would've been.

I definitely would've liked to see Pacquiao against some of the guys You listed, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

 

From an economic perspective, I doubt those fights would have earned Manny as much money as ODLH, Hatton, Cotto, etc.

From a legacy perspective, they wouldn't have done as much for his all time p4p ranking, either.

As he started to slip, which was as early as the Mosley fight by my eye, he could have probably still made LW and continued to have been dominant for a little longer than he was in reality at WW, so his legacy may have benefited from a later return to LW. His bank balance wouldn't have, though.

 

I have no issue with him skipping those names

 

On the other hand, what if Manny fought down at lightweight nowadays? Against the likes of ry Garcia, lomachenko, Shakur Stevenson, Rolly remero, tank Davis etc. We all know PAC has the heart of an assassin, so how would he do against this modern day era of competition?

I would never ask of another fighter to do this, only if it's Manny Pacquiao. Hypothetically speaking just mythologicaly I mean.

 

What Manny did by immediately jumping from lightweight to welterweight was amazing. Even though Oscar was clearly past his best and hadn’t fought at welterweight in years, he was still the favourite. People thought it was a bridge too far for Manny - a year earlier he’d been a super featherweight. Ridiculous.

With hindsight people tend to play down the win and focus on Oscar being old and weight drained, which he was, but if it had taken place at super welter where Oscar probably could have made weight more comfortably, Manny still would have won.

I don’t think Pacquiao could have done anything remotely as impressive at lightweight, although looking back there were probably fights to be made there too.

 

I don't think those fights at 135 were any more challenging or any more rewarding (be it in terms of legacy or money) than the path Manny chose to walk. Keeping in mind that it was on the eve of Pacquiao-Hatton in May 2009 that Mayweather announced he was returning - every other prospective fight for Pacquiao seemed insignificant and there was never any chance of it taking place lower than 147.

De La Hoya was perfect low-hanging fruit which it made all the sense in the world to take for reasons already mentioned, so that only really leaves the Hatton fight back down at 140 as an opportunity where, if he'd wanted, Pacquiao could have turned his attention back to the Lightweights. But nobody had any qualms about him targeting Hatton instead, and nor should they have. Wasn't a great division at the time, but Hatton was still the consensus top man at 140.

 

I suspect current day Manny would lose to the best fighter(s) in the world in any weight division he could make.

Prime Manny would clean up the current LW division without too much bother.

 

Yeah, a former Fly titlest, moving up from SFW to WW with only 1 fight at LW inbetween, is both unprecedented and insane. Whilst his performance vs a shell of ODLH was impressive, obliterating Hatton and dominating Cotto, were much better wins, imo, even though in his prime Oscar was better than either.