By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs) is in the position where he can potentially retire a legend tonight in his fight against Manny Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) on Top Rank pay-per-view from the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. If Vargas can take Pacquiao’s scalp from him tonight, it would be a fine pelt to add to his growing collection of nice pelts.
Looking at Vargas and Pacquiao stand next to each other during the face off on Friday, Vargas looked like a monster in size. He’s HUGE in size. There’s no way that Pacquiao is going to be able to stand up to the big Mexican American if he tries to stand and trade with him, because Vargas is one of the biggest guys in the 147lb division right now.
I don’t want to take anything away from Pacquiao, but he doesn’t belong in the welterweight division. The fact that he’s been able to get away with fighting in this weight class is more of a product of match-making than a case of him being meant for the weight class. We saw what happened to Pacquiao when he finally fought a quality welterweight last year when he was schooled by the superior Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the ‘Fight of the Century’ in May 2015.
That wasn’t even close. Mayweather was so much better that it wasn’t even a fight. Pacquiao never fought the good welterweights before like Errol Spence, Keith Thurman, Amir Khan, Shawn Porter, Kell Brook or Danny Garcia. I’m sorry, but I don’t consider Tim Bradley to be a true welterweight, so I don’t count him as a good welterweight. Bradley was a good light welterweight, but definitely not a good welterweight.
We’ve seen how Bradley doesn’t belong in the 147lb division in his fights against Ruslan Provodnikov and Diego Chaves. Those aren’t even the best welterweights, and yet they were able to fight Bradley to a standstill. Pacquiao never fought the good welterweights, so I think he’s going to be in trouble tonight when he gets inside the ring with Vargas.
Vargas wants to become a legend himself, but for him to accomplish that task, he’s going to need to send Pacquiao down to defeat tonight. It would be Pacquiao’s 7th loss of his career, and perhaps his most devastating, because it’s coming at the wrong time for him with him now holding political position in the senate in the Philippines. That’s a six-year stint for Pacquiao, and he barely has enough time as it is to try, because he has to take time away from his political position.
Vargas has every advantage over Pacquiao that you could think of other than experience. That’s the only thing that Pacquiao has going for him. Some boxing fan think Pacquiao has the superior hand speed, but Vargas would disagree with them on that. He believes he’ll be coming into tonight’s fight with equal or better hand speed. If that turns out to be the case, then this is going to be a long night for Pacquiao, because speed is the only thing that he has going for him. The power is equal, and the size, and youth go to Vargas. You can also add boxing skills as another one of Vargas’ advantages in this fight.
“I feel great and I’m here to give the fans a great fight and come out on top and prove I’m the best in the welterweight division,” Vargas said via ESPN.com. “We’ve worked hard for this and I have no doubt about the outcome. Manny Pacquiao has had a great career and it would mean the world to beat him, and that is what I am ready to do. I want to become a legend.”
My only question is will Pacquiao retire after he loses to Vargas or will he be a good soldier and fight on for Top Rank? Pacquiao can still be useful for his 84-year-old promoter Bob Arum by serving as a stepping stone for the aging promoter’s light welterweight champion Terence Crawford. If Pacquiao can stick around after losing to Vargas to fight Crawford, and let him get a name on his resume, then I think he would be useful.
It would be a selfless move on Pacquiao’s part to go out in that manner. Some boxing stars wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t want their careers to be tarnished by being a stepping stone, but maybe Pacquiao will see things differently and be willing to fight Crawford if he loses to Vargas tonight.
“It’s motivating because I am the challenger this time and I am fighting a champion,” Pacquiao said to ESPN.com. “[Winning the belt back] would mean a lot and would bring honor to my country.”
Pacquiao is fighting one of the welterweight champions in Vargas, but perhaps not THE champion in the division. We don’t know who that champion is, but my guess it’s not Vargas. I think we have an uncrowned champion in Errol Spence Jr., who is on the cusp of greatness.
That’s the fight that Arum should have made for Pacquiao, but I guess it’s not a match-up that would have a great deal of meaning due to Spence not having a belt in his possession yet. I think Pacquiao wants to feel validated, and the only way he can get that feeling is by beating a champion regardless of whether he’s perceived as the best or not. The downside of picking Vargas is that if Pacquiao loses the fight, then there’s really nowhere to go.
Yeah, there’s the styles make fights argument that you can make by saying that maybe Pacquiao would do better against WBC champion Danny Garcia or WBA champion Keith Thurman, but I have a hard time seeing Pacquiao beat either of those guys. If Pacquiao can’t beat Vargas, then he’s probably not going to be able to beat those two talents. It would be really bad news for Pacquiao’s boxing career to lose to Vargas tonight, because his only real option, besides retirement, would be to move down to 140 and try his hand against WBC/WBO champion Terence Crawford.
