This Saturday night Manny Pacquiao will
be making his first splash into the lightweight division. In a
career which started back in the Minimumweight division, the
fighter known as Pacman will try to take the WBC lightweight
title from champion David Diaz.
Pacquaio has fought his last several
fights at 130, and will make the jump to 135 on Saturday night
from the Mandalay Bay Casino and Resort in Las Vegas. He will be
parting with his WBC 130 pound title to try and snag the 135 pound title.
He has accomplished everything else, so why not? The only
question is, will he lose his greatest asset as a
fighter -his power- by continually moving up in weight?
The reason why I bring this question up is because he
fights a tough fighter in David Diaz on Saturday night, and
word is that he's looking to move further up after this fight.
There is a lot of speculation that this will be a one fight
visit to the 135 pound division, because he has eyes for some
guys at 140, mainly Ricky Hatton. Some of
Pacquiao's big money fight partners have vanished. Erik Morales and
Marco Antonio Barrera have retired. He took care of past
business by beating Juan Manuel Marquez in his last fight.
Floyd Mayweather was a slight possibility, but even he has
supposedly retired. So, his biggest money fight would be at 140
with Ricky Hatton, but even this would have to wait awhile,
since Hatton obviously wants to bounce back from his loss to
Mayweather.
Another possible big fight fell through when Juan Diaz was
upset by Nate Campbell earlier this year. Not to say that there
are no intriguing or tough fights for Pacquiao out there; just
not opportunities at huge paydays. Diaz is a Mexican
fighter, which Pacquiao has made a career of dethroning.
However, Diaz is not the beloved long time champ that Mexican fans adore
like with Barrera and Morales. Fights with Kendall Holt, Edwin
Valero, or even Nate Campbell would be good and tough fights,
but not huge payday fights. Luckily for Pacman he has such a
fan base that he's still able to put up good pay per view
numbers, but it helps to have a popular adversary.
Pacquiao is coming off two big wins over Barrera and
Marquez, both fights were not typical Pacquiao fights in that
they went the distance. This may be more typically the case now
as Pacquiao is getting a little older and moving up in weight.
He's not quite able to overwhelm these bigger guys like he
easily did
against guys at 126 or even 130. But, he's still able to win, and
put on good fights.
Saturday's fight could be something
from the past even though Pacquiao is moving
up in weight. He's fighting a guy who also likes to slug, which
fits more into Pacman's style. In his last two fights Pacquiao
fought guys who wanted to box, especially in the Barrera fight.
But, Diaz will probably want to brawl, so this could be
exciting stuff if things go as planned. This could be the fight
that would have the general boxing public excited over Pacquaio again.
As for David Diaz, this is easily the biggest fight of his
career. He's a solid Chicago fighter who currently holds the
WBC lightweight crown. His only loss is to the very tough
Kendall Holt. He really burst into the scene a couple of years ago
when he upset highly touted Jose Armando Santa Cruz, and he's
been a force since. Diaz needs to greatly step up for this
fight, and greatly do better than he has in his last two
fights. (In his last fight he won a very uneventful majority
decision over little known Ramon Montano, and before that he
narrowly beat an aging and retiring Erik Morales).
There's been a lot of moving in shaking in this division
of late. Nobody thought Nate Campbell would upset Juan Diaz
earlier in the year, this threw the division in upheaval. So,
who's to say Diaz can't upset Pacquaio. Well, for one, Campbell
had the style to beat Diaz. He was able to use his speed and
slick boxing ability to thwart the forward coming Juan Diaz.
But, I don't know if Diaz has the style to beat Pacquiao, in
fact he has the style Pacquaio prefers, and no one has beat
Pacman at his own game yet. Only time will tell and we'll see
just what happens on Saturday night. Will the freight train
known as Manny Pacquaio keep rolling, or will the lightweight
division get rocked again?
