Who has been Pacquiao's most "Prime" opponent?

How would YOU judge when a fighter is past the prime? Losing? Draining?

 

Marquez 4

 

Some guys would say when a fighter is not the same, he's past the prime.
I saw the Cotto-Pac fight and Cotto's skills were still exhibited there.

There's a little hint I got after the Pac fight though, it's the retirement talk/plan about Cotto. What does that imply then?

 

Agreed

 

I agree in here. Some guys would say Cotto's not the same fighter because of his lesser aggression but the tactical Cotto was better than the aggressive one. It will favor Pac more when Cotto goes more aggressive.

He improvised his skills (the Margarito symptoms may have caused this though). Cotto's boxing gameplan would have been effective against Pac should he have used it the whole fight. He could have won.

The classic Cotto (which was appealing and was what obviously the fans were looking for) wouldn't work against Pac as how I see it.

 

lol what about Barrera atsch

 

His skill levels were still there in his last fight too, which is why I questioned how someone could say his prime ended after the Pacquiao loss.

A fighters prime is too subjective to set guidelines and most careers have up and down performances and good and bad patches.

 

Exactly, I have no objections to that.
The issues about 'Prime' is truly subjective.
It's just in a matter of opinion, though we have our own standards of gauging it. :good

 

Marquez & Barrera

 

what's more laughable is some certain set of fan group claiming that cotto was shot/damaged goods after margo when some of them even picked cotto to win over pac and recently had to abandon their shot cotto theory when their boy is fighting cotto around 3 years and a few more wars later.

yeah the same cotto without the cockines. and if you notice, cotto tends to be more defensive depends on the level of his opponents. his impetousness leads to his defeat against margo same case with pac.

 

No his lack of stamina was to blame for his fight with Margarito. With may weather IMO was his lack of aggression. Whith pacquiao he lost because pacquiao had the style and skills to be beat him. Don't get me wrong even if cotto was in his prime I think PAC would still win. But cotto was not the same fighter he was before Margarito. If he was more defensive against better competition why was he less aggressive against Jennings. He was completely different. With Mosley he wasn't as defensive as he was with jennings.

 

There are more than one option to answer on this list but I choosed the first option.

 

Right! Cotto was prime against Floyd only!

 

Barrera I
JMM I & II
Bradley

Clear top choices...

 

Cotto?!?! Hell no.

Spot on with the other three, though...