By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum reportedly doesn’t see his prize gravy train fighter WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao as deteriorating at all. How Arum can see Pacquiao as not going downhill is beyond me because Pacquiao looks like the shadow of his former self from 2009.

I freely admit that the 2009 version of Pacquiao that trounced Miguel Cotto is a lot better than the one that has plodded his way through victories over Shane Mosley, Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito and Juan Manuel Marquez. What the problem is with Pacquiao is anyone’s guess, but there is some clear deterioration going on there with Pacquiao whether Arum wants to admit it or not.

If Arum wants to say the opposite of what everyone can plainly see with their own two eyes then that’s good for him, but he’s going to have a harder and harder time trying to sound believable if Pacquiao continues to look terrible in his future fights.

I have some thoughts as to what’s going on with Pacquiao and making him look so mediocre. First of all, Pacquiao is getting old at 33. That’s not old for a heavyweight but it is for a tiny 33-year-old guy like him. If you look around at guys like Jorge Arce, 32, Erik Morales, 35, and Marco Antonio Barrera, 36. These guys had their best years in the past and aren’t nearly the fighters they once were.

Small fighters seem to peek a lot faster than the bigger guys, and tend to wear down quicker. Pacquiao has also had some really hard fights in his career and taken big shots lately from guys that would wear anyone down if they beat on them. Look at the guys Pacquiao has fought: Antonio Margarito, Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Shane Mosley, and Juan Manuel Marquez. Pacquiao got hit a lot by these guys and that can’t have been good for his health and his longevity. Then there’s the power feeling that’s been going on in order to keep Pacquiao’s weight up.

As you know, if you eat a lot, it ages you something fierce and Pacquiao has been eating like a horse just to artificially keep his weight up over 140. He’s eat as much as six meals a day and that kind of power feeding is going to speed everything up. Arum can say Pacquiao is the same fighter but his performances say differently. There’s some deterioration going on there.