Manny Pacquiao: Is He Still Good for Boxing?
By “Bad” Brad Berkwitt
On May 7th, in Las Vegas, Nevada at the MGM Grand P4P Best Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao, 52-3-2, 38 KO’s is taking on another no hoper in Sugar Shane Mosley, 46-6-1, 39 KO’s for Pacquiao’s WBO Welterweight Title. This will mark the second fight in just six months that promoter Bob Arum has matched Pacquiao extremely soft. As we all know, back in November of last year, he matched his other Top Rank fighter Antonio “Hands of Plaster” Margarito, 38-7, 27 KO’s against Manny. The fight was a complete mismatch that saw Margarito sent to the hospital at the conclusion of the match.
With that said, a great like Shane Mosley once was, will be carried out on a stretcher before the end of this match. In fact, how did Shane even get this title shot? In May of 2010, he lost a wide unanimous decision to Floyd Mayweather, JR., 41-0, 25 KO’s and then in September of 2010, he fought a boring draw against feather fisted Sergio Mora, 22-1-1, 6 KO’s. So now six months after the Mora snooze fest, Mosley hit the Golden Ticket to fight Pacquiao. This is what is wrong with boxing today!
Here are the top 15 rankings by the WBO for the Welterweight Division. RSR readers, do you see Shane Mosley anywhere? In fact, I have only seen in action or at least heard of numbers 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, and 15.
Manny Pacquiao (Champion)
1. Kell Brook
2. Mike Jones
3. Saul Alvarez
4.Vitaliy Demyanenko
5. Joshua Clottey
6. Diego G. Chaves
7. Ed Paredes
8. Samuel Columban
9. Bethuel Ushona
10. Shawn Porter
11. Paul Malignaggi
12. Rafal Jackiewicz
13. Valeriy Brazhnyk
14. Gumersindo L. Carrasco
15. Jesus Soto Karass
So why is the title of this article Manny Pacquiao: Is He Still Good for Boxing? Manny is the face of boxing today. His name generates more press than any other fighter or three fighters combined who are still active in the sport. Manny is a warrior. A man that from all accounts, who wants to see his people of the PI through his work as a Congressman flourish. But his role as the face of boxing is questionable. RSR called for Pacquiao to turn the Margarito fight down because he was a convicted cheater no matter if a very small contingent wanted to claim they thought towards fight time, he was innocent. It didn’t matter because the masses of boxing pundits squashed any type of ridiculous notions that Margarito was not in fact, a cheater!
Now Bob Arum puts Shane Mosley in front of Manny a fighter who is not only completely shot, but is not even ranked in the top 15 of the WBO. Shane is a sure pick for induction into the IBHOF once he retires and meets the five year rule, but for certain, he is going to be retired after this fight and it’s going to be sad to see.
Manny Pacquiao needs to stand up and tell his Promoter Bob Arum enough is enough. Either get me a live body to fight, or I am going to call it a career. Sadly, we know that is not going to happen – and I for one, will take the $60.00 dollar price tag as I did for Manny’s last fight we boycotted and buy some more Frank Sinatra CD’s.
On May 7th, tune out and keep your $60.00 bones and use it on something better than a one sided mismatch.