By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s career is at an all-time low right now with him having lost his last two fights, and with one of those losses being a vicious 6th round knockout defeat at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez last December.
The theme for that fight was for Pacquiao to get back to his youth of 25 when he was an all-action type of fighter. We saw how good that went. Marquez dropped Pacquiao twice in the fight, and knocked him clean out.
Now Pacquiao is saying he’s going to get back to his old form when he steps inside the ring to fight one of his promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable guys.
Pacquiao said to the manilatimes.com “There is nothing to worry about my health. I’m okay and fit…I’m confident I can regain my old deadly form.”
I don’t know if Pacquiao can regain his old form. I do believe he can regain the old part, as in him being older, but I don’t believe it’s possible for him to go back to the fighter he was in 2008 and 2009, which I feel was him at his best.
The way that Pacquiao taking shots against Marquez last December left me under the impression that he’s seen better days, and won’t get back to where he once was. It made for nice sound bites for Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach talking about him getting back to what he was earlier in his career 9 years ago, but it’s not physically possible.
Instead of trying to get back to where he was when his body was younger, he should be fighting smarter to avoid getting hit as much. That’s something Pacquiao can do.
Like a lot of people, I wonder if he’ll be able to take a hard shot without hitting the canvas when he fights again in September and in his future bouts. We saw how Roy Jones Jr. suddenly lost it overnight starting in 2004, and he’s fighter that relied on his blazing hand speed to dominate his fights.
The lightning fast Pacquiao is also a fighter that relies on his hand speed to win his fights, and he’s not quite as fast as he once was. I don’t know if he can still take a hard shot without nose-diving into the canvas face first or falling on his backside.
I think Arum needs to be really careful about who he matches Pacquiao up against for his September fight because he’s got these grand plans for Pacquiao, but he doesn’t seem to acknowledge the fact that Pacquiao has looked poor in his last two fights.
Arum seems to be looking to match Pacquiao based on who he used to be instead of what he is now. He should be looking to steer Pacquiao into safer waters by putting him in with the light hitting Tim Bradley next instead of Marquez or Brandon Rios.
Arum could really help himself if he expands his Top Rank stable with a number of temporary light hitting welterweights or light welterweights that he can use as Pacquiao’s opponents for the next two years to keep his career afloat while they pile in the green cash with pay-per-view fights ranging from 800,000 to 1 million buys.
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