Pacquiao-Marquez to fight for WBO ‘Champion of the decade’ belt on 12/8

By Boxing News - 10/24/2012 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao-Marquez to fight for WBO 'Champion of the decade' belt on 12/8By Chris Williams: With no strap on the line for the December 8th fight between Manny Pacquiao (54-4-2, 38 KO’s) and Juan Manuel Marquez (54-6-1, 39 KO’s), the World Boxing Organization has decided to slide on in by creating a new made up strap for Pacquiao and Marquez to fight for called the “WBO Champion of the decade” belt when they meet up at the MGM Grand, Grand Garden Arena, in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is pretty sad. Two guys fighting for a newly created strap by one of the sanctioning bodies. I wonder if there’s a sanctioning fee included with this?

According to Philboxing.com, the WBO came up with this brilliant idea at the WBO’s 25th Silver Jubilee convention last Tuesday. The WBO voted on creating this special strap and it was voted in favor unanimously of having the belt bestowed upon the winner of the Pacquiao vs. Marquez 4 bout.

I don’t know about you but this sure does seem like the WBO is trying to get in good with Pacquiao and Marquez. My guess is Pacquiao is the one they’re trying to get in good with because he’s a lot younger than the 39-year-old Marquez and he’s the huge moneymaker in terms of pay per view and gate attraction.

This is kind of off putting to see the WBO creating straps like ‘Fighter of the decade,’ because it ignores great fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr, who unlike Pacquiao, is undefeated and has been dominating everyone he’s faced. Mayweather hasn’t lost a fight, which is more than I can say about the Filipino Pacquiao. Mayweather easily beat Marquez in 2009 by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision, which is more than I can say about Pacquiao, who has won two controversial decisions over Marquez to go along with an equally controversial 12 round draw. Boxing fans believe that Pacquiao deserved to lose all three fights to Marquez.

I don’t see how Pacquiao can be included any kind of fight for the WBO Fighter of the Decade strap when he’s not been a great fighter during that time. Besides all the controversial fights that Pacquiao has been involved in there’s been the catchweight handicap fights where Pacquiao has been given the advantage of fighting at a catchweight for titles at 147 and 154. And Marquez shouldn’t be included in a fighter of the decade fight because he was beaten badly by Mayweather, and he does have the losses to Pacquiao during the decade. If you want to be technical about it, those losses, as controversial as they were, should disqualify Marquez for fighting for any kind of fighter of the decade strap in my view.



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