With Margarito Vanquished, Who Does Manny Pacquiao Face Next?

Same vote as me, and some concession about it being incredibly unlikely.

:)

whoa – hello Mr. Rok, J.

Although he said definitively that it would have to be at 144.
Manny does not want to go lower.

So I expect JMM….but with Manny, I think Santa Claus has already left more gifts that I could have expected. So who knows?

Lesser than Margarito???!!!

Jeez, you can argue he’s won his last 36 rounds. How much easier can it get for him?

But in a proper fight, Manny would eat Khan. If Manny can hurt Margo…. well you don’t need me to finish that sentence.

The only question would be if Manny can get inside Khan’s jab. and let’s be honest, that is a given, he’s too good.

Khan would be much better suited to Mayweather. And if the rumors are true then that will be happening before Manny can get a crack at him

(My predictions on those two fights that would never happen: I think Pacquiao can weave his way through Williams for a decision, but Martinez is one of two men in boxing that could outspeed Pac. Khan is the other, and that’s essentially academic.)

Would Williams bend down enough that he’d just be as tall as Margarito?

Heh. Jump punches. Just like Little Mac in Punch-Out!

and said the fight will likely happen int he first 3 months of 2011.

Floyd has the better brain, see things better, reacts before others can, but I think the physical qualities are with Manny now.

I’m going to sit on the fence and say that I don’t think a difference in speed would be discernible….lol

Reflexes: Floyd, without a doubt
Footwork: Equal but different
Combos: Manny
Just Pure Handspeed: Floyd
But Then There’s Power: Manny
Oh But Timing: Floyd
And Accuracy: Tie???
Defensively: Floyd is better, but
Also Notable: Manny’s southpaw stance works around a lot of what Floyd does
This Fight Would Be Won By: Damned if I know
And If It Doesn’t Happen: Everyone loses a chance at an era-defining, image-raising, “boxing-saving” (ugh) mega mega mega mega mega fight.

But it is not a high enough option.

sadly….

I think I’d rather see him fight Martinez at 154 though.

I just had a vision of Pavlik getting yelled at by Loew in the corner, and Kelly saying, “He’s too short, I can’t hit him good.” For some reason it’s hilarious in my head.

I actually agree, but:

He bends over and gives up his height advantage.

This is true, but he bends over and gives away his 6’3" to guys who are 5’11" or so. Manny’s 5’6". Tall Paul can’t bend over enough to not still have a huge advantage there, I don’t think.

I agree Manny would beat him if it happened, ‘cause if it did, they’d make Paul cut down to 150, too, and they can talk about how they can still make 147 all day, but fact is he hasn’t fought down there in a long time now. I reckon they’d drain the hell out of him, and rightfully so to give 9 inches in height.

I think Andre would give it a go, but it’s mostly a gut feeling. The only time I’ve seen Berto with his back to the wall was against Luis Collazo, and when he thought he had to win the 12th round to win that fight, he did so emphatically. I think there’s some deserved backlash against Berto, but some of it is just impatience with the trajectory of his career, which has stagnated in the last two years. I think he’d lose convincingly to Manny, but you just never know how good someone is against top competition until they fight some. The problem in making a prognosis for Manny-Berto, and doing so with any accuracy, is that Berto has mostly been fed mediocrities so far. Maybe he’d surprise a lot of people by rising to the occasion. Maybe he’d be overwhelmed.

I did not call him “washed up.” I said he’s still a very good fighter, but not himself when fighting over 135 pounds, which is a weight he’s pushing himself with quite admirably. Marquez has not traveled up in weight the way that Manny Pacquiao has (nobody has, ever), plus Marquez is 37 years old now. There is no way Pacquiao will fight Marquez anywhere below 140 pounds, and likely not below something maybe a 144-pound catchweight.

There are a lot of reasons that Manny and Marquez have not fought a third time, but the biggest is that since their rematch — which I scored for Marquez, by the way — Manny has shot upward, while Marquez has settled in at 135 pounds. Manny has become a superstar money player. Marquez has not. When the two of them main evented on PPV in 2008, they did about 400,000 buys. I am not taking anything away from that number — it’s still a record for fighters that weight (130) or below in a PPV main event. But Manny is now doing 1.25 million (Oscar), 800K or so (Hatton), 1.2 million (Cotto), and an early estimate of 1.4 million against Margarito, plus the 700,000 earlier this year against Clottey. Marquez did do a million against Mayweather, but that’s a severe outlier in his career. His PPV rematch this year with Juan Diaz did well for the level of show it was, but it was minuscule in comparison to the Pacquiao PPV events now.

They talked about the fight earlier this year. Pacquiao said he didn’t think that was a fight people would pay to see, or at least he wasn’t sure it made sense from a business standpoint, feeling fans would no longer see that as a competitive fight, especially after the way Mayweather trounced Marquez in their farcical 2009 mismatch, and given what Manny has done to bigger, younger fighters than Marquez. There’s also the fact that Top Rank promotes Pacquiao, while Golden Boy promotes Marquez, and those two companies are simply not doing business together at this stage, to the point that Shane Mosley says to fight Pacquiao, he will fight without the Golden Boy team behind him, and go at it under his own promotional banner. They’re not talking.

Now look, I don’t argue with you having a desire to see Pacquiao-Marquez III. I’d buy it, too, and hope for a great fight. I think Marquez would have his moments, but the matchup feels a lot like Pacquiao-Morales III to me, when a peaking (or so we thought) Pacquiao trucked Morales in three rounds. Morales by that point was no longer the fighter he had been before, and Marquez is no longer the fighter he was in their 2004 fight, or their 2008 rematch. He’s older, he’s slower, he gets hit more, and Manny has simply gotten bigger and stronger than him. Manny has proven he carries weight very well over 135. Marquez has not, and he looked flat awful against Mayweather trying to fight that heavy. JMM is a great fighter, and a personal favorite of mine. I just think the matchup is all wrong.

However, it just might happen. And maybe you’re right and he fares better than I think he would. I’d hope you’re right, because it would mean another great fight between two class warriors who have given each other hell over 24 of the closest-fought rounds I’ve ever seen. And I think Marquez would fight Manny Pacquiao at 140, 144, 147, 154, or with an unlimited weight. I know JMM is dying for that fight. I know he still thinks he can win it. That’s what would appeal to me if they do the fight — Marquez is stone cold convinced he can still do it. I’m not, but that’s why they fight the fights, and they’re both a credit to boxing that I’d frankly be eager to support, even feeling as I do that it has become a mismatch. Hope that explains my take on the fight better.

I wouldn’t say it’s likely, but sure there’s a chance. But I don’t think he’d take two years off and fight again since unlike a lot of guys, he has legitimate outside business (Congress) and not just some bullshit record label or whatever to put his energy into.

Hell, Alvarez said earlier this year he wants to fight Mayweather as soon as possible. I think he’d fight an elephant if they told him to, and he certainly wouldn’t lack for brass or effort against Manny (or Floyd). I don’t know — I think I’m into it, with the same understanding that most people will think it’s nuts. I know some guys are going to throw some bombs in that fight.

A fighters early fights are going to be either brawls, blowouts, or KO’s. No boxer gets around that. Even Manny Pacquiao. As a boxer goes up in rank (especially in weight) the fights go on to the later rounds, if you’re lucky- you get a KO or, unlucky- you get KO’d yourself.

Margarito is unique in that he’s a tall welterweight. His best weight. However now, that story might change. When has the welterweight division been as top heavy as it has been from the last 15 years- the years that De La Hoya and Trinidad ruled it?

Like I said, the fact that Margo’s fights went the distance in these most recent fights has more to do with the class and pedigree of his opponents AND the fact that he fought 3 of those fights against arguable bigger guys rather than his lack of punching power.

You’re using false logic.

No two ways around it. Look it up. It’s in the dictionary.

If people want to opine that Antonio Margarito does not possess “KO power”- that I’ll buy. But no one can, with a straight face, say that Antonio Margarito doesn’t possess punching power. That’s all we’ve (I think?) been saying.

From the looks of it, it seemed- early on that people wanted to debate whether or not AM possessed (in general terms) punching power. It “seemed” the only thing he had going for him was his chin and moving forward style. That is ENTIRE UNTRUE.

KO power- no, agreed. (even though Manny Pacquiao has only KO’d just 73% of opponents in his wins. Not much more than Margo, but. . . . . .Manny has one-punch KO power that obviously AM doesn’t)

That’s as far as I’ll go.

Margarito’s KO’s came after a lot of leather had been exchanged.
He was feared for smiling…not sneering…as he ran to finish off what he started.

As Ted implies above, that in itself has Power.

then I would love to see it as well.
I like Bradley. He comes to fight.

How much he would have left after Manny busted him up would be another story.
Manny has a way of making his opponents defining moments their declining ones.