By Chris Williams: As we saw recently in his gift decision over Juan Manuel Marquez, WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao is really starting to show signs of aging. The legs are gone, the hand speed is slowing and like a lot of boxers that are accustomed to getting by on hand speed alone, Pacquiao’s defensive skills look horrible now.
The Filipino star looked bad against Marquez, and you can see that Pacquiao won’t last much longer unless his expert matchmaker Bob Arum matches him ever so carefully. I think Arum may need to put Pacquiao on the equivalent of career life support by putting him back in with his declining Top Rank stars from yesterday and have Pacquiao feast on them one after another to extend his career.
What Arum can’t do is put his gravy train fighter back in with Marquez or set him up with the fight that the boxing public is demanding, a bout against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Both of those fights are too dangerous for Pacquiao and Arum at this point. Pacquiao can’t move to save his life now and is a fighter that is getting by the last bit of hand speed. I don’t expect his speed to last too much longer, but hopefully Pacquiao retires before he takes a major beating.
It won’t look good Pacquiao getting gift decisions one after another while taking terrible beatings. Arum won’t let that happen, though. He’s going to keep his little cash cow far away from danger by not putting him with Mayweather or Marquez. Of course, we’ll constantly here about how Arum is working on a fight against Mayweather or Marquez, but the fight will never materialize. Pacquiao will then be quietly put in with someone like Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito or Joshua Clottey so that Arum can keep Pacquiao winning for a little while longer.
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