Well, we all know how that turned out. Now that the dust has settled from Pac Man's ridiculously easy eight-round beating of the Golden Boy, boxing writers are pretty much in unanimous agreement over what De La Hoya's next move should be. See here or here or here for some hints if you haven't figured it out. That last one is my favorite, since it comes from The Ring blog... and of course, The Ring is owned by Golden Boy Promotions.
That leaves us with only Pacquiao's next move to ponder. Smart money seems to be on a fight with Ricky Hatton, who fortuitously looked excellent in dispatching Paul Malignaggi in his last bout. With the Hitman's chanting crazies and Manny's Filipino faithful, that would be a fantastic pairing in terms of pure atmosphere. I like Pac Man to take that one if it comes together, though obviously Hatton would be a lot more live than De La Hoya.
Others have asked about Antonio Margarito, to which I say this: no freakin' way. And there's the man who ceded his claim as the pound-for-pound best only because he retired, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Assuming Pacquiao fights and beats Hatton, why wouldn't this make sense for the second half of 2009? Floyd's only coming out of retirement if he sees a whole lot of dollar signs and a fight he feels confident he'll win.
As my brother Uatu recently pointed out, prime Mayweather probably beats prime Pac Man. But there's no guarantee Floyd would automatically be at his prime after such a long layoff, and it's not real smart to dismiss Manny under any circumstances right now. Okay, maybe against Margarito...
In sadder news for fight fans, it looks like the round of the year isn't going to get an encore after all. Rick Reeno of BoxingScene.com says Ricardo Torres has pulled out of his rubber match with Kendall Holt, citing weight issues due to illness during training. And while Showtime is likely to find some punching bag... um, I mean, opponent, to fight Holt on short notice, the major televised boxing schedule of 2008 is likely to close out not with a bang (Torres-Holt III), but with a whimper (Wlad Klitschko-Rahman).
Update: As you can read here, Demetrius Hopkins is stepping in to face Holt on Saturday's Showtime card. D-Hop was slated to fight on the undercard anyway, so this (hopefully) is quite different from many cases of fighters stepping in on short notice. It may not be the all-out explosion we were expecting from the rubber match, but it should be good.
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3 comments:
I said it before and I will say it again: my prediction is that Manny will beat Hatton. I would love to see it happen though, and Hatton will look better than Oscar, there can be no doubt about that.
Oscar should retire. No reason not to.
Bummer about Holt-Torres. I liked Holt to win.
Margarito is not invincible! He looked great against Cotto but Cotto was never considered an untouchable fighter. Paul Williams bested Margarito by throwing a lot of punches. Manny can do the same. It would be more competitive than most think.
There's no doubt Manny could out-quick Margarito, but only to a point. Margarito has had tremendous conditioning in the past and has thrown tons of punches. Oscar, not so much.
Therefore, I would say that Margarito would get hit but would eventually steamroller Manny.
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