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The next
stop on the professional boxing merry-go-round will be
Saturday night in Las Vegas. As the world of boxing
turns, only names and faces change.
This
time, it will be Manny Pacquiao against Juan Manuel
Marquez.
Seven
weeks later, it will be Oscar de la Hoya against Stevie
Forbes.
Each is
promoted as if it has a chance to be the next
Ali-Foreman. Neither, of course, will be.
We are
told that Pacquiao is in the best shape of his life,
that he stayed to train in Los Angeles for the full
eight weeks, rather than traveling back and forth from
his native Philippines. We are told that he trains by
fighting 20 consecutive rounds with no break, that he
runs the hills at Griffith Park, straight up for 55
minutes.
We are
told that Marquez deserved the majority draw decision he
got in their first fight in 2004 because he won the last
11 rounds, after getting knocked down three times in the
first. We are told that, when the final bell rings
Saturday night, there will be “a 100 million Mexicans,
on their feet, applauding.”
We are
told that the winner will be the super-featherweight
champion for the World Boxing Council and Ring Magazine.
Like the rest of captivity, when it comes to boxing’s
collection of sanctioning bodies, we don’t care.
What we
do care about is where this all leads. It was a great
marketing slogan for the Women’s National Basketball
Association a few years ago, but “We Got Next” is the
essence of what drives boxing. That’s why, if you look
closely during boxing telecasts, you will see promoters
such as Bob Arum of Top Rank and Richard Schaefer of
Golden Boy sitting ringside with their fingers crossed.
A win by
Pacquiao on Saturday night takes Arum one step closer to
something special for his fighter. Same thing for
Schaefer with a win by de la Hoya on May 3 at the Home
Depot Center. Those would represent first jumps through
a series of hoops that can get boxing to one of its real
paydays, one actually noticed by the general public.
These
are tournament playoffs, and the marquee final is
Pacquiao-de la Hoya.
The idea
was first floated by boxing broadcaster Larry Merchant,
who now calls the match “somewhere between a possibility
and a probability.”
Neither
Arum nor Schaefer will deny that. Frankly, both would be
delighted. They’d line their pockets and their sport
would make the 11 o’clock news again.
Both
know that hurdles remain.
Assuming
a victory by Pacquiao, not an easy assumption, next up
would be David Diaz in June. Diaz, a former Olympian, is
on the Saturday night card at Mandalay Bay, fighting a
10-rounder against Ramon Montano, one of Pacquiao’s
sparring partners.
After
that, nothing is clear. Maybe a match against Ricky
Hatton. Maybe no third match, while awaiting de la Hoya.
For de
la Hoya, the path is clearer but probably harder.
Assuming he beats Forbes, next up, probably in
September, is a rematch of his huge fight and close loss
to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Talk about lining pockets. Their
first fight set pay-per-view records at about 2.3
million buys, numbers once thought achievable only by
heavyweights.
Schaefer
says that de la Hoya, now 34 and a partner with him in
Golden Boy, has said he wants three more fights and then
he is done.
“We
agree, this is the last chapter,” Schaefer says. “If he
beats Forbes and then has another close loss to
Mayweather, maybe he’d go on. I’m not sure. Frankly, I
think that would be the end.”
Arum
says that Pacquiao-de la Hoya would have been a tough
match to call “three or four years ago,” but now sees
Pacquiao “outspeeding” the older, bigger de la Hoya.
Arum’s
already working his promotion angles.
This has
not been a bantered-about fight previously because de la
Hoya’s era of stardom came before Pacquiao’s. Also,
Pacquiao, 29, is a much smaller man, fighting Saturday
at 130 and fighting as recently as 1999 at 113. De la
Hoya will fight Forbes at a contractual 149, with a
pound plus or minus allowed at weigh-in, and seems most
comfortable at 154.
Since de
la Hoya, who has usually handled smaller fighters
easily, is not likely to come down much below 147,
Pacquiao might fight with a weight discrepancy of about
8 lb.
That
doesn’t always signify certain defeat.
In the
1930s and early 40s, Henry Armstrong held titles at 126,
135 and 147 pounds. On March 1, 1940, at Gilmore Stadium
in
Los Angeles,
he tried, for the fourth title, fighting Ceferino Garcia
at 160 and getting a draw.
Even
back then, they had rules about large weight
differences, but Armstrong got around it at the weigh-in
by gluing several lead fishing weights to his groin and
gluing more hair around the weights to conceal them.
A
Pacquiao-de la Hoya fight is still at least four or five
lead-up victories away from taking place. But that’s one
of the attractions of the sport. Each fight leads to the
next one. The hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone.
Every
once in awhile, the stars align and sports fans get a
Pacquiao-de la Hoya.
As
Merchant says, “That’s one that would get lots of
people’s attention.” |
