By Chris Williams: Emanuel Steward, the trainer for Miguel Cotto and Wladimir Klitschko, had a blunt assessment about Manny Pacquiao in a recent interview, saying basically that Pacquiao isn’t going to fight the guys that are a threat to beating him. And I hate to say it, but I agree with Steward.
I wish he was wrong about this but it’s hard to disagree with the man when you see Pacquiao not fighting guys like Sergio Martinez, Paul Williams, Andre Berto, James Kirkland, Alfredo Angulo or Timothy Bradley. Those are just some of the names that boxing fans have been asking for Pacquiao to fight. Instead of fighting those guys, we’re seeing Pacquiao matched up against Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito, Ricky Hatton, and now an old Shane Mosley.
Steward had this to say about Pacquiao at eastside boxing: “Pacquiao isn’t going to fight the guys who are the biggest threats.”
In other words, Pacquiao is going to be matched up against certain fighters but not the ones that have a good chance of beating him is what Steward appears to be saying. Well, Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach said in the past that he would never match one of his fighters against someone he thought they had a good chance of losing to. Is that Pacquiao has never fought guys like Kirkland, Martinez, Bradley, Angulo, Williams, and Berto?
If Pacquiao keeps fighting guys like 39-year-old Mosley, we’re likely to see a new number #1 pound-for-pound fighter in boxing with Martinez taking Pacquiao’s place. I think Martinez should have been #1 a long time ago, but I’m not the one making the picks.
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