The best fighters you'd take Pacquiao over in any weight class?

Just as an aside: Futch - who saw all the greats of the 40's and 50's up close - picked Arguello as the most skilled he'd ever seen. Ahead of Robinson and Pep etc.

 

Yeah, I know. I saw the thread. Like I said subjective criteria. I don´t think those three are comparable. Different styles need different skills. I´m no futch though.

 

I'm very unhappy about the belt situation, especially at HW. But I'd rather have those than something as blatantly racist and segragationist as a "coloured title". That Haye won't meet the Klits over politics or cowardice or whatever is still better than because he's black and they're white.

Questions like these are so incredibly hard to answer that I prefer to merely look at what each fighter achieved in his own time. You can only beat the best there is in your own era.

In the 40's and 50's there were of course those that said that Robinson et al didn't measure up to the old timers with their "to the end"-fights and thin or no gloves. That will always be the case, but you have to look at how they do under their own ruleset.

That was exactly the point I was making. This often seems as important for contemprorary opinion as actual achievements. That doesn't mean that Jeffries and Dempsey weren't great fighters, though. They were.

 

I agree but that was not my question. Please answer them.

Yes they are but not in this case.

That´s new to me. As far as I know people back then knew what they were looking at.

:good

 

Sorry. Yes, I suppose I see them as championship fights. But of course of less value than fights for the undisputed title.

 

The best fighters I would confidently back Pacquiao to defeat would be the likes of Floyd Mayweather, Oscar De La Hoya and Aaron Pryor. I really fancy him against all three at 140lbs.

At 147, I think most top fighters would expose Pac as really being too small for that weight class. I dread to think of what a Thomas Hearns or a Ray Leonard could do to him.

At 135 and 140, I think Pac is a much more live dog. Pernell Whitaker would school him, and Roberto Duran would outfight him comprehensively. Other than those genuine elite guys, I see him being competitive with anyone. I think he would lose to Chavez at 135, unsure of how the fight would go at lww. Same scenario with Arguello.

 

Although Saldivar may adjust I feel there is little evidence to say that Pacquiao fades later on in the bouts. I also feel that the lead left right uppercut combination of Pacquiao would cause serious damage to Chavez, that is certainly an amazing matchup.

 

I see him beating Arguello at 135 or 140... feel that his footspeed and lead left would be the keys to the fight. Although I don't know how he holds up under those body shots over 15 rounds I just can't see him being knocked out these days and so I feel that he wins a hard fought decision.

 

At 135/40 Pac is pretty hard to bet against.

I really don't think Chavez has the foot speed to trouble or catch Pac - his worst performances were guys he was outsped by frequently (Taylor I, Whitaker). Roger Mayweather troubled him considerably with speed and power in their second fight, just wasn't tough enough to stay focused. I think Pac can stop Arguello just like Pryor did. Pryor is an interesting match up and probably the most even in my mind - I wouldn't be confident either way.

Call it blasphemy but I think Duran/Pac is a pick em fight that slightly favors the speed of Pac with an intelligent game plan. (ie - Duran's trouble with fast guys with a great sense of range like Lang and Leonard and Viruet - and Pac hits a whole lot harder and more intelligently than Viruet did.) Obviously Pac has never fought anyone like Duran, but Duran lost to the super elite fighters of his time at welter and above. I can see Pac stopping De Jesus three out of three times at 135/140.

 

I could see Pac losing a series to Dejesus as well though, in fact that's a more intriguing matchup for me than Duran.

 

i am a pacquiao man, but i don't agree with some of your points. the way that manny uses his speed is not the same way as guys like taylor, whitaker, lang, leonard and viruet did. those guys were boxers who moved at speed (at least, srl was in the rematch). manny isn't. he uses his speed in an offensive sense. duran would eat him in that fight.

 

Paquiao is a fighter that will overwhelm through sheer speed, punching power, and volume the 2nd tier skill fighters.

Anyone that has been around this forum for years, knows that I've always said that imo DLH and MAB were overrated as far as sheer boxing skill was concerned.
......so it did'nt suprise me one bit that Pacquiao beat DLH, in fact I picked Pacquiao to beat DLH.

Its the upper echelon skill fighters that will trouble and beat Pacquiao every time.
.....and in skill fighters I'm talking fighters like Marquez (who has proved it twice already).....Duran,Leonard, Arguello, Sanchez, Chavez, Whitaker.......some of these fighters are boxer/punchers, but they are supremely skilled within the upper echelon in boxing history even just purely speaking of boxing skill.

So though Pacquiao should be ranked highly because he's been busting fighters bigger than he is left and right, none of the fighters he has beaten even come close to the skillset of the fighters I just mentioned.

You need the skillset and know how to beat a fighter as physically gifted as Manny Pacquiao, we've already seen it done pretty convincingly by both Marquez and Morales......
....... which is why Pacquiao does'nt matchup favorably with most hardcore boxing fans against past elites who could beat opposition with pure skill.




......and btw, I'm convinced Pacquiao destroys DLH at any weight 140 lbs and below, in the same way he destroyed MAB.
DLH has a similar style to MAB's in that both are too reliant on their left hand as their main weapon.

If Freddie Roach has taught Paquiao one thing, its how to diffuse left hand happy fighters.

I'd give DLH a better chance at 147 lbs if he'd hydrate back to the normal weight he usually hydrates back to when he fights as a welter.
.....but even then DLH's style does'nt matchup will against Pacquiao.

 

:huh Pacquiao beat Marquez 1st time out (115-112), the next fight was a draw (114-114) [by my cards] , and Morales only beat him 115-113, a defeat which Pacquiao paid back with interest by beating Morales much more convincingly a year later, so I don't know how you arrive at such definitive conclusions.

Throw in the fact that all of these fights were at 126-130, whereas most people seem to agree that Pac was at his best in his 135-140 period, which was short yet electrifying. When he weighed 138 vs Hatton and 142 vs Oscar, that was the best Pacquiao (well, he is still getting better but now he is fighting higher than he should, compromising his effectiveness a bit).

Pacquiao would have butchered Marquez if they had rematched last year, because he is improving and developing all the time. Marquez and Morales throw good combos (JMM more so than Erik), but their respective defences are weak (Erik more so than JMM) and they have too often got dragged into the mire vs lower-level opponents (norwood, john, j.diaz, past-prime mab / mccullough, chi)... Pac has the ability edge to ensure he does not get dragged into this type of fight, even when facing bigger and/or better comp (cotto, hatton, clottey, etc).

The current Manny Pacquiao is a better fighter ability-wise than either jmm or morales. That's why he is p4p#1, and jmm/erik never were. That's why he can lay waste to men much bigger than him, and jmm/erik never could. Too many people on here cannot distinguish between aesthetic merits (like jmm's combination ability) and real raw effectiveness (ie that the pac of now consistently proves that he is a higher level fighter than guys like jmm ever were).

 

No...No, Pacquiao and Marquez officially drew in their first match in 2004 and officially Pacquiao beat Marquez in the second fight in 2008 by split decision.

 

Those were my cards for those fights. I didn't mean to present them as fact, I know those weren't the official verdicts, but that is what I believe the scores were. I will edit that post so it is clearer what I meant.