For the Good of boxing Weight class no longer an issue

Weight class no longer an issue for mega-fights



[SIZE=-1]By Mark Staniforth
PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer[/SIZE]
Forget the history-making heavyweights, the marvelous middleweights and the lightning lightweights - boxing’s traditional divisions are facing meltdown at the hands of a new phenomenon designed to meet the credit crunch head-on.
For today’s billboard-hogging superstars, dominating their natural division against the best available contenders is no longer good enough. Money talks, and it talks loudly enough to persuade them to look elsewhere.
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. called out the middleweight Oscar De La Hoya. Kelly Pavlik had the world at his feet in the middleweight division but chose to jump up in a bid to get the better of Bernard Hopkins, which ended in his first defeat.
On December 6, De La Hoya will fight Manny Pacquiao - a fighter whose natural weight is at least two divisions lower, but whose status as one of the pound-for-pound kings is enough to sweep such issues aside.
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Who is to say the trend will not gather pace in 2009?
There is already talk of Ricky Hatton agreeing to an intriguing showdown against sometime Pacquiao nemesis, lightweight Juan Manuel Marquez, in May.
The whole business may send a shudder through the purists who do not like to see their neat timelines spoiled by champions who do not show any respect for the sport’s so-called traditional boundaries.
But it is an undoubtedly positive reaction by an industry already struggling to compete with the rise of mixed martial arts even before the global economy went into meltdown.
It’s a tough fact that these days pure boxing ability alone is not going to get you where you want to be. The rankings are full of fighters likely to continue to be locked out: Chris John. Edwin Valero. Even Antonio Margarito.
The best fight that could be made right now, from that purist perspective, is Pacquiao against Valero, the concussive Venezuelan puncher who is crucially a virtual unknown in the United States.
The best, perhaps only fight which could enhance Mayweather’s legacy if he returned, is a clash with Margarito, the knockout conqueror of Miguel Cotto.
They will not happen, but it is hardly boxing’s fault. The sport has been ailing on the pay-per-view markets for a long time and enough obituaries have been written on the sport to fill a heavyweight graveyard.
Boxing’s superstars are taking the only route left, and it is an intriguing one, although in many cases, other than 10s of millions of dollars, one must question what exactly one fighter has to gain.
De La Hoya is already secured in the Hall of Fame and rightly so, but a defeat to Pacquiao would do untold embarrassment to his carefully cultivated image, while a win would just provoke a chorus of ‘I told you so.’
Hatton would find himself in a similar position if he agreed to an admittedly intriguing showdown with Marquez.
But according to the pay-per-view sales, these are precisely the fights the public want to see.