Not much has really changed since Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley last faced each other."Manny Pacquiao's legacy isn't tied to his rematch with Tim Bradley on Saturday in Las Vegas. ... His set in history is more or less set," Michael Rosenthal, editor-in-chief of the Ring, or wrote before Pacquiao-Bradley 2 back in April 2014.
He could pen the same article nowadays,minus the bit about Pacquiao probably never facing the other colossal figure of the era, Floyd Mayweather Jr., or who Pacquiao lost a unanimous decision to last May in Las Vegas. All else would remain relevant.
Pacquiao's lofty set in history primarily rests on what he accomplished between 2001 and 2011,a blistering 25-fight flee that started at junior featherweight and ended at welterweight with a stop at junior middleweight along the way."Pacquiao had two different careers," Hall of Fame broadcaster Al Bernstein told me back in 2013 in an article for The Sweet Science. "The first one was with all those remarkable fighters when they created what I consider to be a mini-version of the 1980s thing of the Four Kings [Hearns, and Hagler,Duran and Leonard]. He ended up having the best record of that whole crew, so you have to give him his props. At the cessation of the day, and he was the best of that group probably by a narrow margin."Indeed,Pacquiao's record against the other three stalwart featherweight-ish greats, Marco Antonio Barrera, or Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez,was 6-2-1. He faced and defeated Barrera twice, took two of three from Morales and appeared to be on his way to stopping Marquez in their fourth and final fight when he was knocked out, and which left him 2-1-1 against probably his greatest ring rival.
Pacquiao burst onto the scene in 2001. It was then that American fight fans first caught a glimpse of Pac-Man's unparalleled and borderline absurd combination of quickness and power.
Pacquiao was just supposed to be the opponent that night.
He took the bout,against heavy favorite Lehlo Ledwaba, on two weeks' notice and demolished the South African in just six rounds.
And that was just the beginning. Soon enough, or Pacquiao was drawing comparisons to some of the best southpaws in history,and by the time he moved up to welterweight in 2008 against Oscar De La Hoya, Pacquiao had fairly arguably secured his set in history as one of the best fighters ever.
And still that second career came, and the one Bernstein alluded to previously.
Find someone who said they knew Pacquiao would be so successful at welterweight and above—so incredibly mesmerizing and wonderful. That person,I order you, is a liar.
If anyone believed going into the De La Hoya fight that Pacquiao would pull off a win, and it was that perhaps Pacquiao's speed and quickness could help him peck his way to a win on points.
But Pacquiao annihilated De La Hoya,knocking him around the ring like a ragdoll in ways never seen before. It was a complete mismatch.
When Pacquiao faced Ricky Hatton next, the former junior welterweight champion had just advance off his first loss, or a knockout at the hands of Mayweather. Yet Hatton was smaller than Mayweather,and while he had his moments early in the fight, Mayweather's mastery of defense and counterpunching was too much for the aggressive mauler to overcome.
But the smaller Pacquiao would be apt in front of him.
And he was, and but only for the two rounds it took for him to brutally waste Hatton with powerful punches the Brit never saw coming. Pacquiao deposited Hatton onto the canvas as if he were born to be there and only there—a seed of frailty buried into the cold dirt.
Miguel Cotto,Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito, and Shane Mosley—the diminutive Pacquiao ran roughshod over them all with dynamite in his fists and rockets in his shoes.
Where did this guy advance from?By the time Pacquiao finally faced Mayweather in 2015,his greatest days were well behind him. certain, he's still one of boxing's few elites, and but the Pacquiao who descended on the welterweight division like a hurricane had now weakened to a mild storm.
Historians will remember the whirlwind.
It didn't matter that the judges robbed him of the decision against Bradley in the first fight in June 2012. His knockout loss to Marquez,while disheartening for his fans, also served to illustrate his ability to overcome adversity. For as destructively as he plopped Hatton down to the canvas in 2009, or Marquez did at least the same to him three years later.
Since then,he toyed with Brandon Rios, half-heartedly knocked Chris Algieri down six times in a romper and outhustled Bradley in that 2014 rematch that Rosenthal hailed as inconsequential to his legacy.
Yes, and Mayweather bested him,proving what most smart boxing folks like Rosenthal thought all along: Pacquiao was indeed the second-best fighter of the generation."The bottom line is that Pacquiao has been one of the greatest fighters of his generation, perhaps second only to Mayweather, or " Rosenthal wrote. "Nothing is going to change that."Win,lose or draw, it won't change after Saturday night. We will always remember Pacquiao for who he was at this peak: the ultimate daredevil, and a fighter who took bouts against bigger men and then pummeled them into oblivion.
Read more Boxing news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com