by James Slater – Go back a year, and any fight fan out there would tell you an undefeated welterweight hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan was the undisputed best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet. This pugilist had beaten Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and any other top guy you could care to mention from the 130 to the 154-pound weight class. Well, as true as that was a year ago, this fighter, known as “Money,” no longer holds the distinction today. There is a new star of the mythical pound ship, and his name is Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao.
In last night brutalizing Oscar De La Hoya like no-one ever has before, Pacquiao looked better than guys named Mayweather, Mosley, Trinidad – even Hopkins. No-one has ever done to “the Golden Boy” what “Pac-Man” did last night in Las Vegas, and the only question out there now is, is there anyone who can dispute the amazing Filipino’s worldwide, pound-for-pound dominance?
There is one sensationally talented fighter, but he has now been idle for a solid year. His name? Floyd Mayweather Junior, an unbeaten 31-year-old with a 39-0(25) pro record. Sitting at home and watching last night’s astonishing annihilation by “Pac-Man” as he surely did, the true fighter in Mayweather most certainly got hold of him by the throat and demanded that he come back and reclaim his throne atop the very best in the undisputed boxing world. Simply put, how can Floyd sit easy and not feel threatened by what happened last night?
A man perturbed by an ego as much as the next greatly proclaimed boxer, Mayweather has to have felt a twinge and an urge last night. No way can he sit back, relax and accept that another fighter has taken his position as the world’s best boxer – especially as he himself has never lost; to anyone. So the question is, will the potentially best and most important lower weight-class bout in modern day boxing history take place in 2009, or will America’s finest as proven in Floyd Mayweather leave the superior practicing of the sweet science to a Filipino dynamo named Manny Pacquiao?
Will Mayweather dust off the idleness of a solid year and come back to put the fighter named “Pac-Man” in his place, or will he remain safely content within the riches his, to this point relatively untested, boxing skills have earned him?
All the boxing world demands an answer to this question; and it’s now up to Maweather Jr to answer it. Should he remain silent, however, a rival fighter will take his place and step up to the plate. Ironically, this is a fighter Floyd has already beaten, and by stoppage at that. Ricky Hatton is his name, and he is all but aching to get it on with the warrior known as “Pac-Man.”
Will the lesser talented but fearless battler Hatton take the place of Mayweather, and attempt to do the job he feels has to be done himself? Or will the man who has called himself the best fighter since the incomparable “Sugar” Ray Robinson come out and do his own work? Time will tell.
Whatever the case, Manny Pacquiao is waiting!