By Chris Williams: Normally when a fighter starts getting old they steadily get worse with each passing year. You don’t expect a fighter at the age of 35 to be fighting like he was when he was 30. It just doesn’t happen that way unfortunately. But Bob Arum of Top Rank thinks that his fighter Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) will be the same fighter he was five years ago when he steps inside the ring on November 23rd to face Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.
Arum said this via Fightnews “Manny is training more seriously and harder than anytime I’ve seen him…He concentrates on nothing else but his training and I think the Manny Pacquiao you’re going to see on November 23 is going to be a Manny Pacquiao that is perhaps even better than the Pacquiao we saw against De La Hoya, Hatton and Cotto.”
Well, Pacquiao was a young 30 when he beat a weight drained, half-starved Oscar De La Hoya in 2008 at 147. Pacquiao was 31 when he defeated Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto in 2009.
That was a long, long time when Pacquiao had those three fights, and a lot of things have changed for him since then. Pacquiao is turning 35 in two months, he hasn’t won a fight in two long years, and he’s coming off one of the worst type of knockouts that a fighter can suffer with him being knocked clean out by Juan Manuel Marquez last December. When you get up there in your mid-30s, the years become like dog years where one year is almost equal to 7 years of aging, unless you’re one of the lucky ones like Bernard Hopkins. Things change quickly for a fighter in his mid-30s.
I can see why Arum would want Pacquiao to be the young colt he was back in 2008-2009, but the fact of the matter is he’s not that fighter anymore. If Pacquiao was the same fighter he was back in 2008, do you really think that a limited runner like Tim Bradley would be able to beat him? If Pacquiao was the same fighter now as he was in 2009, do you think Marquez would have been able to knock him out cold with a fight hand last year? I don’t.
I think Arum needs to sit down and have a big cup of coffee while watching Pacquiao’s recent fights and then comparing them to his fights from 2008-2009. If Arum would do that with an open head, he’d see that Pacquiao is gone forever. He’s been replaced by a different Pacquiao; this one slower, easier to be hit, and with stamina issues. That’s not to say that Pacquiao still can’t be an effective fighter, but it’s going to take a good trainer and a good game plan for Pacquiao to win his fights from now on.
It’s also going to take good match-making on Arum’s part to put Pacquiao in with the right kinds of opponents. Right now, I’d say someone like Mike Alvarado would be perfect for Pacquiao’s next fight because Alvarado is coming off of a stoppage loss. and he’s looking very beatable now. But Arum is kidding himself if he thinks Pacquiao is the young fighter he was back when he fought the likes Hatton, De La Hoya and Cotto.
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