And they say boxing is dead….
Not quite.
The crew of MMA Weekly News believes boxing has to thank Manny Pacquiao and his fighting heart. Thanks to Freddie Roach for his grudge against Oscar de la Hoya and starting this crazy idea of pitting his smaller pitbull fighter against a legend. Thanks to Bob Arum for riding on with this "crazy idea." And special thanks to the Golden Boy for biting into this crazy idea of a "mismatch" in favor of the lure of the Benjamins offered by PPV. It turns out to be a real mismatch — Golden Boy was no match for the world's number one pound-for-pound boxer in the world.
They say, mixed martial arts has taken over boxing as the most scientific game on the mat. Manny Pacquiao proved them wrong. Boxing's number one pound-for-pound fighter displayed a spectacular level of discipline and technicality in his game plan never before seen in his earlier fights. Pacquiao has been known as a brawler, someone who doesn't mind getting hit while he delivers his bone-crunching blows. This was not the case with his fight with De la Hoya.
With utmost agility and cunning, he controlled the fight from start to finish–never giving in to the temptation of pouring all his blows even when De la Hoya already looked so helpless. You can clearly see that Pacquiao, while delivering his jabs and straights and upper cuts with surgical precision, never forgets about De la Hoya's lethal left hook. He knew that one small window, one small lapse in his defense, and the Golden Boy's left hook could change the direction of the fight.
It was mostly hit and disappear to De la Hoya's left, rendering the Golden Boy's lethal weapon useless. De la Hoya and his high-profile handlers must have prepared for Pacquiao's 1-2-3 combos which is characteristic of his being a brawler, and they got stood up on their ambush plan. There were no Pacquiao flurry of punches on the early rounds, just surgical precision straights to the face of De la Hoya. The Golden Boy could barely counter as the Pacman would disappear after each hit to the right, apparently De la Hoya's blind spot.
The brawler has turned into a precision fighter. With Manny Pacquiao, the world can start looking at boxing with a better perspective.
We could not blame anyone for thinking that boxing is losing its appeal, what with allegations of corruption and with the diluting of the term "champ' with all these alphabet titles. Manny Pacquiao simply brought back the heart, the gritting discipline, and the nobility of the sport back into the front page.
Proponents of mixed martial arts have more reason to be glad with this development. The death of boxing could mean the waning of the public's interest in full-contact sports. Boxing is MMA's elder cousin. And whatever demise boxing would suffer could conversely affect mixed martial arts. On the other hand, keeping boxing alive speaks so much about the future of mixed martial arts as a mainstream sport.
