By Chris Williams: Right now it looks as if the biggest problem getting in the way of a potential mouthwatering clash between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao is the issue surrounding the purse split of the revenue.
The undefeated Mayweather (42-0, 26 KO’s) wants more than a 50-50 deal, whereas Pacquiao says he’ll accept nothing less than a 50-50 offer or else he won’t take the fight. It sounds like a fairly simple thing to solve. However, does Pacquiao even deserve to get a 50-50 deal with Mayweather?
As far as I’m concerned, Pacquiao hasn’t accomplished enough to warrant getting an even split with Floyd given Pacquiao’s three losses, two draws, his questionable wins over Juan Manuel Marquez, all the catchweight fights, his soft matchmaking against fading Top Rank fighters and his fights against older guys on the downside of their careers. There’s just not enough on Pacquiao’s resume for me to see him deserving a 50-50 fight with the likes of Mayweather.
Here below are Pacquiao’s best wins of his career:
• Miguel Cotto – He fought Pacquiao at a catchweight in 2009 and had recently suffering a brutal beating in an 11th round TKO loss to Antonio Margarito. A win over Cotto at this point of his career was nothing special.
• Antonio Margarito – He wasn’t the same fighter when he fought Pacquiao in November 2010. Margarito had been stopped a year earlier by Shane Mosley and had then been forced to take a year off from boxing after losing his license to fight due to the glove scandal. Margarito came back and fought Roberto Garcia and looked awful six months before the Pacquiao fight.
• Ricky Hatton – this fight took place two years after Hatton had already been knocked out by Floyd Mayweather Jr. By the time Pacquiao fought him, Hatton was no longer looking like the same fighter he once was. He had been staggered badly in his fight a year earlier by fringe contender Juan Lazcano and there are questions in that fight whether Hatton would have been knocked out had he not been given a time out to have his shoelaces tied after being staggered by Lazcano. I’ve never seen a fight stopped when a fighter was badly hurt just so he can have his shoelaces tied. Hatton also was binge eating between fights and had to take off a great deal of weight before he fought Pacquiao.
• Oscar De La Hoya – Pacquiao fought De La Hoya had the very end of De La Hoya’s career. He had lost three out of his last six fights and really should have lost four out of his six fights because one his wins during that time period against Felix Sturm was highly questionable. To make things worse, De La Hoya had to drastically diet to get down to 147 to fight Pacquiao and that left De La Hoya badly weakened. Pacquiao got a win but it wasn’t the same as beating a prime non-weight drained De La Hoya. Some fans don’t realize that and wrongly believe that Pacquiao fought a prime De La Hoya. How wrong they are.
• Joshua Clottey – this is a fight that really makes you shake your year. Clottey had lost his last fight to Miguel Cotto, yet he was still given the opportunity to fight Pacquiao for the title anyway and of course Clottey lost. Clottey likely got the fight simply because he was one of Bob Arum’s Top Ranks stable fighters and this would be an in house fight with no sharing of promotional duties with an outside promoter.
• Shane Mosley – Pacquiao fought Mosley after he had turned 40-years-old and had lost two out of his last five fights. You can make a strong argument that Mosley should have lost three out of his last five fights because his 12 round draw with Sergio Mora in his fight before the Pacquiao fight looked to be a loss and not a draw in the minds of many boxing fans. Pacquiao had no problems beating a very, very old looking Mosley in a dull fight that left boxing fans disappointed. How the fight was ever made is the big question. It did make Arum and Pacquiao a lot of money on pay per view.
• Juan Manuel Marquez – Pacquiao has fought Marquez three times with the first fight being a 12 round draw; the second fight a 12 round split decision for Pacquiao and the third fight a 12 round majority decision for Pacquiao. Many boxing fans felt that Marquez should have won all three fights and I’m in agreement with that.
• Erik Morales – He soundly beat Pacquiao by a 12 round decision in 2005. However, in the two rematches, Morales was badly weight drained and not the same fighter he was in 2005 because of that. He had been getting too big in between fights and having to dramatically take off a great deal of weight to fight Pacquiao.
• Marco Antonio Barrera – Pacquiao got Barrera in 2003 after his two wars with Erik Morales. Barrera wasn’t the same fighter he was during the Morales fights by the time Pacquiao got him.
Comments are closed.