Manny Pacquiao

By Eric Thomas: According to AP, Oscar De La Hoya may not be retiring after his December 6th fight with Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas. Apparently, because of De La Hoya’s inability to land a big mega fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr., who retired recently, it may be a factor in keeping De La Hoya fighting on past the Pacquiao bout. Obviously, De La Hoya’s decision hinges on him being successful against the 130 pound Pacquiao and beating him in an impressive fashion. It’s unlikely that he would want to continue – or that boxing fans, for that matter – if he were to be defeated by Pacquiao.

Apart from that, De La Hoya will likely received a huge payday in his fight with Pacquiao, perhaps as much as $30 million dollars for the fight. Other than De La Hoya holding out for the slim chance that Mayweather may want to make a comeback in 2009, there’s few other opponents for De La Hoya to fight, aside from Ricky Hatton or a rematch with Pacquiao, if the fight turns out to be close or exciting enough to call for a rematch.

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By Manuel Perez: Earlier today, the mega-bout between Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs) and lightweight Manny Pacquiao (47-3-2, 35 KOs) was officially announced and will be taking place on December 6th in Las Vegas, Nevada. As a Mexican, I always wanted to see Pacquiao get his backside handed to him, but not like this. This fight is a joke and I personally feel ashamed to see De La Hoya, 35, resorting to taking a fight with a fighter so much smaller than him like Pacquiao. I could excuse De La Hoya for taking a fighter one level above or below his junior middleweight class, but for him to take a fighter three divisions below him at lightweight is just wrong.

Heck, Pacquiao just recently moved up from super featherweight to defeat a tough but limited David Diaz for his World Boxing Council lightweight title. Other than money, something De La Hoya already has way too much of, what is there to gain from beating a fighter as small as Pacquiao? It’s a fight that is a throwback to a gladiator match in which a giant is pitted against a much smaller fighter, just for the enjoyment of a ravenous audience that enjoyed seeing mismatches of this type.

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By Jim Dower: We’ve all seen it before, a fighter takes on someone a bit too good for him and takes a serious beating and is never the same again. In the case of super featherweight Manny Pacquiao, we may be seeing just that happening when he likely takes on Oscar De La Hoya on December 6th. Although the fight hasn’t yet been officially announced, it appears from the many boxing news sources that Pacquiao will be fighting De La Hoya next on December 6th, in what is supposed to be De La Hoya’s last fight of his career.

At 5’6″ 130 lbs, Pacquiao will be at a tremendous disadvantage against the taller 5’11” and there’s concern by some that Pacquiao may have a beating in store for him when he attempts to use his explosive offensive attacks against De La Hoya. Against the shorter, more limited opposition that Pacquiao has mainly been fighting in his long career, he’s been able to get away with poor boxing technique. However, against a skilled fighter like De La Hoya, who can make his opponents pay for sloppy technique, Pacquiao is going to in more than a little trouble. In a way, this fight bout reminds me somewhat of the fight between the taller Salvador Sanchez and Wilfredo Gomez, a bout in which Sanchez stopped the Gomez in the 8th round of their bout in 1981.

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By Aaron Klein: The “Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs) is expected to strike gold for the final time when he likely announces his decision whether or not he’ll be signing for to fight pound-for-pound boxing king Manny Pacquiao on December 6th in Las Vegas, Nevada. At this point, it’s either going to be the min-sized Pacquiao, who at 130 poses little problems to the much larger 154 lb. De La Hoya, or former one-time star from The Contender reality boxing television series Sergio Mora.

Obviously, Pacquiao is the easy choice here, since most non-boxing people have no clue who Mora is, and many of the boxing fans that know about him seem to care less about seeing him fight De La Hoya. However, this isn’t about picking the best absolute opponent, because if that was the case, De La Hoya would have picked either Antonio Margarito or Paul Williams, easily two of the best welterweights in the division bar none. In a head to head match up with a fighter as small as Pacquiao, both know doubt would wipe the deck with the diminutive Filipino star, and as old and as faded as 35 year-old De La Hoya is, he’ll likely do the same unless he runs out of gas.

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By Eric Thomas: It looks as if the negotiations are continuing with Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao for De La Hoya’s farewell fight on December 6th. According to boxing writer Dennis Principe from Fightnews, De La Hoya has upped the offer to lightweight Pacquiao, increasing it from 70-30 to a 67-33 purse split with Pacquiao, of course, to get the much smaller 33% PPV split. Now it remains to be seen whether Pacquiao will go for the offer or still insist on the 60-40 purse split that he originally asked for at the start of negotiations. Pacquiao may instead like the idea reportedly offered by his trainer Freddie Roach, who came up with the idea of De La Hoya getting a 60% purse split and Pacquiao getting 30%, and then the winner getting the remaining 10% purse split.

Nothing has been said of that idea, and I can only imagine that De La Hoya, who is no longer fighting at the top of his game, might not like that idea very much. It would, however, be a sporting way to solve the issue and would seem to make the most sense of all. If Pacquiao is stuck on getting 40%, why not let him fight to get to that level? For either fighter, it would take some courage to accept such a deal, because they’d be potentially giving up a lot if they were to lose. Both, of course, can afford it I’m sure.

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By Thomas Hanson: It seems as if the negotiations between Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao are still alive and well. In fact, De La Hoya is expecting to make an announcement about the fight next week, according to SI.com. De La Hoya said that he wants the fight. However, it remains to seen whether he wants it bad enough to change his original purse split offer of 70-30 to something more to Pacquiao’s liking, which has steadfastly remained stuck at 60-40. Last week, Pacquiao walked away from the bargaining process when he saw that De La Hoya wasn’t making any movements on his original 70-30 offer.

However, it may possibly be that Pacquiao is reconsidering taking the offer, because it would still easily give him the biggest payday of his career, maybe as much by 4X. That’s obviously something that has to be on his mind, because it’s not every day that Pacquiao gets a payday which will likely end with him making $15 million. Although it will likely not be quite as much as the $22 million that Mayweather received, it will still come close enough. Mayweather, by the way, also was given a 70-30 purse split by De La Hoya, and had no problems taking it.

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By Sean McDaniel: In the latest boxing news on the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao fight negotiations, there’s still no movement between the two sides, and it may turn out that a 65-35 split might not be good enough to get Pacquiao to sign for the fight. In fact, De La Hoya, 35, might want to sweeten the offer a little more and perhaps bump it up another percentage point or two, so that Pacquiao might find it more to his liking and agree to the terms. The original offer made to Pacquiao was a 70-30 split, with Pacquiao getting the much smaller 30% PPV revenue.

Some boxing fans might think that this is a low number, but given the fact that De La Hoya is the name here, the main drawing factor in the U.S. by far, it more than makes sense. Even at the lower 30% number, it’s still more than two-three times the biggest amount of money that Pacquiao has ever received in a fight in his entire career.

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