By Dominic Sauboorah: There’s no doubting that Manny Pacquiao is one of the greatest fighters in our modern era. He’s an eight division world champion which is not only record breaking, but generally what most would class as an impossible feat to overcome. He is legend and will be remembered for years and years, but you can’t help but wonder if the wins he’s had have been overrated.

Ever since Manny Pacquiao beat Oscar De La Hoya he has been rated as the number one pound for pound fighter in the world. He then went on to beat the likes of Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito, Sugar Shane Mosley and Juan Manuel Marquez for the second time. All of these fighters are perceived to many as world class. The unfortunate thing however, that makes Pacquiao’s apparent “op level victories” not so amazing is that he fought those fighters when they weren’t fully in their prime

Oscar De La Hoya for example. He fought him at 147 pounds, despite the fact that De La Hoya was 36 at this point, he was a natural light middleweight and hadn’t fought at welterweight for years. He had also just come off of a loss to Floyd Mayweather. Likewise with Ricky Hatton, who he fought coming off a loss to Mayweather. When he fought Miguel Cotto he fought him after he had just come off of a loss to Antonio Margarito and ever since then wasn’t the same fighter. Joshua Clottey was a punching bag for Manny Pacquiao as he just stood there and blocked everything that Manny threw at him. Sugar Shane Mosley wasn’t only coming off of a loss when he fought Pacquiao, but he was also very fatigued, he was 38-years-old and simply did not have the fitness to keep up with Manny’s pace. Finally the main one that exposes Pacquiao as a hyped up fighter was his third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez.

Everyone expected a barn burner and to be fair it was. Marquez landed some very good upper cuts and hooks, while Pacquiao was very effective with his jab. It was a very close fight and Pacquiao escaped with a narrow majority decision victory. They were evenly matched, but were Floyd Mayweather and Marquez when they fought? No way. Mayweather dominated Marquez throughout, picking him off at range and managing to knock him down in the second round. Pacquiao was unable to do this in their third fight. Most people scored the fight a draw between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez, however the fight with Marquez and Mayweather most people had Mayweather winning every single round. Manny Pacquiao struggled to deal with his evenly matched opponent, due to Marquez’s counter punching. Everyone’s saying they would love to see Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather fight. Nevertheless if Manny Pacquiao found it difficult to deal with Marquez, who’s the same height as him and a counter puncher, then how is he supposed to trouble Floyd Mayweather who’s bigger than him and an even better counter puncher than Marquez, if not the best counter puncher in the world?

Manny Pacquiao is a legend and that will never change, but you do have to consider whether his recent victories have been over-hyped. He’s achieved a lot in the past five years against opponents who are past their prime or aren’t very technical. It just makes me wonder how he’ll deal with Floyd Mayweather, who’s still in his prime, very technical and still undefeated.