posted by Large

As we all know, Manny Pacquiao makes his debut at lightweight tomorrow night against the WBC champ at 135, David Diaz. Due to his superstar status in the fight game, Pac Man earned himself the right to fight for a title in his first lightweight bout and at the same time enhance his status as a Mexican Assassin in facing Diaz, a Mexican-American who fights out of Chicago.

With the recent retirement of Floyd Mayweather, Pacquiao was elevated on most notable lists (including Ring Magazine’s) to the title of the best pound-for-pound fighter of the world. Now a recent article over at Boxing Scene is upping the ante and saying that Pacquiao is the likely candidate right now for Fighter of the Decade.

With 2009 right around the corner, I suppose it’s not too early to talk about such a meaningless, media-driven title as F.O.D., especially in that the best-of-the-decade debate is going to be an interesting one in boxing, unlike, say, some of the other big-time individual sports (golf? dah… men’s tennis? doy…).

Right now, though, I have to agree with with Boxing Scene that Pac Man leads the F.O.D. horse-race by half a length or so. De La Hoya fought a lion’s share of the decade’s biggest fights, but then he lost most of them. Joe Calzaghe was an undefeated champion at 168 for all of the 2000′s, but Calzaghe is always going to get second shrift in this argument because of the quality of his competition (not to mention that I’m very down on Calzaghe these days due to his weakass Ghost-ducking “let me fight a legend like Roy Jones because Pavlik doesn’t deserve a shot at me” crap… I thought the Calzag had much bigger cojones than that.)

No, the Fighter of the Decade debate really only includes two men right now, Pacquiao and Mayweather, although I would argue that a third, Cotto, could push himself into the discussion in the next year and a half with the right fights. At the moment, the nod has to go to Pac Man merely on the basis of the number of big-time opponents he’s faced in marquee PPV events. Twice with Juan Manuel Marquez, twice with Marco Antonio Barrera and three times with Erik Morales. His record in those seven fights? 5-1-1. Against those three men, that’s a hell of a decade, and with the JMM trilogy expected to be completed next year sometime, well, there may just be no denying the Pac for F.O.D.

Meanwhile there’s Floyd, whose quality of opposition over the decade was impressive, but not quite so much so in my eyes as Pacquiao’s. On Floyd’s elite-opponent roster there’s Chico Corrales, Jose Luis Castillo (twice), Zab Judah and Oscar (no, no, I will not include Ricky Hatton on this list , I’d put Chop Chop Corley on here before the Fat Man). When you add into the fact that Money proved himself all too willing over the years to stay out of harm’s way and walk away with an easy decision (and the money), his bid for F.O.D. is irreparably flawed. A mega-fight with Cotto next year could get him back in the game , maybe if he beat Cotto and Pac lost to JMM, maybe…

But the Floyd/Cotto fight would more likely be a boon to the candidacy of Cotto, provided of course that Cotto could win. Think about this scenario – Cotto beats Margo and then Oscar this year and then cleans up the welterweights next year, including a big win over Floyd? Granted, that’s a lot of big ifs right there, but if he did it, he might just steal the F.O.D. honors in the late rounds.

(Look for my Pacquiao/Diaz preview and prognostification tomorrow right here at the No Mas Batcave.)