Stay Put, Manny Pacquiao!

Among boxing’s little men, Manny Pacquiao has proven himself an irresistible force. South of the welterweight division, Pacquiao is the biggest name and biggest draw in the sport. The Pacman has his name dropped nearly as much as Paris Hilton, ironically also by men who want a piece of him, although under different circumstances entirely. But I digress…

Pacquiao’s success has him constantly eyeing the next step in furthering his growing iconic status. In recent months, murmurs of his desire to test the waters in the lightweight division have grown louder and louder. Even as he prepares for a superfight with Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao is entertaining options for his next fight, purportedly against 135-pound titlist David Diaz.


While the obvious and immediate concern is his overlooking the extremely dangerous Marquez, the bottom line is that a move to 135 would be a terribly unwise decision by Pacquiao and his handlers. One look at the lightweight terrain reveals a tough row to hoe for Pacquiao, despite his dominance at 126 and 130. For a fighter who started his career at 108 pounds, the Manny Pacquiao march to greatness will eventually meet its Waterloo; the guess here is that it will happen at lightweight.


For our purposes, I will examine Pacquiao’s options at lightweight from a simple risk/reward ratio. Simply put, does the reward for Pacquiao warrant the risk he assumes in each of these matchups? This is a question I will try to answer, and is one that the Pacquiao camp needs to ponder deeply before catapulting their man north to 135.
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[Source: TheSweetScience.com Boxing - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]