"Emmanuel Steward more impressed with Manny Pacquiao over Duran."

Future Hall of Fame trainer Emmanuel Steward believes Manny Pacquiao’s recent title runs have displayed more skill than Roberto Duran’s previous weight class exploits.


In an interview with the Examiner’s Michael Marley, Steward first praised Pacquiao’s list of opponents since moving up to lightweight in 2008. Steward states that Pacquiao has not ducked any challengers despite being a natural lightweight.


“I look at Manny as a lightweight and he’s dominating the welterweights and now fighting at junior middleweight. His real weight, his true weight I think is 138 pounds,” Steward explained. ”The rest of his pounds they just fill him up. And another thing is that Manny does not dodge anybody. It’s kind of crazy, all that a blown up lightweight has been accomplishing. He’s been responsible for great fights against other great fighters.”


In 1978, Roberto Duran jumped from lightweight to welterweight. Duran had dominated the lightweight division for the majority of the 70s, and now looked to become a superstar. He did just that by scoring wins over Carlos Palomino and Sugar Ray Leonard, both marvelous displays of counterpunching and infighting.


But Emmanuel Steward points out that Pacquiao’s shown more diversity with his skill set during his climb through the weights. He notes that because of Pacquiao’s faster hands and feet, the Filipino champion hasn’t experienced the difficulty Duran encountered when pitted against opponents with good movement.


“Duran went up in weight, sure, but he was different than Manny. Duran was strictly a power puncher and guys who could box and move gave him big problems,” Steward detailed. “This guy [Pacquiao] shows himself to be phenomenal because he can come in at you, take your punch and then clip you with that straight left hand. Manny can catch you coming in. He’s got real hand speed but he also dares you to trade punches with him. He’s got his own rhythm and he’s got that unique quick step. Duran would just walk in, wade into you. Manny can do that but he moves so quickly it’s hard for the opponent to nail him.”


Pacquiao will test his pound for pound abilities again on November 13, when he moves up to a junior middleweight catchweight of 150 pounds against Antonio Margarito.


Roberto Duran competed in five different decades in a career that spanned from 1968-2001. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2007 with a final record of 103-16, 70 KOs.

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"Duran was strictly a powerpuncher."

Seems like a dodgy statement at the very prettiest.

 

I kind of hope Manny is still a huge boxing enthusiast and a little boy inside when it comes to boxing sometimes, and he's just a big fan of Manny. That he had one objective and that's to talk up Pacquiao, and he did it over El Cholo's back in an unguarded moment.

That's partly me trying to explain away some pretty demented ****, admittedly.

 

The Law of the Elder Manny:"In order for the universe to go about it's business, which, to be honest whichu, only does so because I let it, every living creature, wether doing mundane day-to-day things, making love to a beautiful (optional) woman, or in a complex multi-faceted situation, ultimately and inescapably must do as Emmanuel Steward had expected all along".

Sometimes, I even notice him building in safe-roads. During the DLH-Mayorga match, he said several times that "Mayorga wasn't being hit all that clean anymore" and "maybe he got into the rythm of Oscar more". While he was right to an extent, you know he'd been riding that line had Mayorga come on strong late.