On Manny Pacquiao's media day during the buildup for the farce with Shane Mosley, I had an entertaining conversation with other members of the press who came to cover the event. The context of the conversation centered around the fact that I thought Freddie Roach and Top Rank were going to keep Pacquiao away from anyone who has boxing talent, good footwork, and a stiff jab from now until the end of his career. Their retort was, "Mayweather is too scared to get in the ring with him," which was far from what I was alluding too, but I can only think now if their opinion changed after watching Pacquiao fail to walk down an unwilling and decrepid Mosley, who kept Pacquiao at bay at times with a stiff jab and constant movement.
Last Saturday, both Pacquiao and Mosley looked like they were in their 40s, circling around each other and waiting for shots they couldn't command. What was more telling for me was how difficult of a time Pacquiao was having with Mosley's inefficient offense. You can call this survival mode all you want, but Pacquiao looked frustrated and was almost in a hypnosis-like daze waiting to time Mosley's stiff jab. Missing were the five or six punch combinations that excited the crowd, or the windmill like workrate that catapulted him into super-stardom. Instead, I saw a fighter who couldn't overwhelm a dead man in front of him who was only using a jab to fend him off.
Pacquiao's frustration boiled over in the press conference when he attributed the awful fight to Mosley's unwillingness to engage. Mosley's plan, however, was to box, and although he didn't succeed in any respect, it was very intriguing to see Pacquiao's reaction to a fighter who slowed the pace down and stuck a jab in his face. He seemed out of character and out of any reason to explain why he didn't go for it. Considering the recent Pacquiao opponent's prior to Mosley, he has always fought a fighter that offered no jab and no lateral movement; just come ahead fighters looking to decapitate them.
There is a reason why people think Juan Manuel Marquez won two fights against him (though I am not of that contingency who believe that) and why Erik Morales, though also past his best, beat him six years ago. That is because Pacquiao can be picked apart in the ring by a tactician. Now, I'm not saying that anybody can outbox Pacquiao. You have to be a very special fighter to keep up with his rapid-fire pace and be able to dodge punches where you have never seen them before. But if an old Shane Mosley could slow Pacquiao's pace down by just jabbing and circling, it may be reason enough he has been matched against the fighters he has been facing.
After the fight, Bob Arum said that if Marquez didn't want to meet Pacquiao at Welterweight, which is a fight I absolutely hate, then Junior Welterweight champions Zab Judah or Timothy Bradley would be considered. Bradley and Judah have the speed and strong technical base I think would be necessary to pull off the upset. Arum, in my opinion, thinks so as well, because Bradley himself said he was never offered anything to fight Pacquiao in the Fall. It just so happens that Marquez has already agreed in principal to fight. There is little money in fighting Judah or Bradley and the risk is enormous, but Marquez is the perfect fall guy for another payday due to their history together. Unfortunately, he will be too small to have any success against Pacquiao at Welterweight, or any weight for that matter, especially when you consider his last fight took place at lightweight.
In the end, Pacquiao has transcended the sport much like Floyd Mayweather Jr. before him, and like Mayweather, he is not fighting the best available fighters available, but instead the more profitable ones. If the Mosley fight is an indication of anything, it's that Pacquiao is quite alright with that as well. Unlike Mayweather, Pacquiao probably won't catch any flak because he is such a nice guy and people love him around the world. They will watch him fight anybody, which is absolutely why he was able to fight somebody who hadn't won a fight in two years. The public will buy it.
Hopefully, Top Rank keeps lining them up for him, because I am beginning to wonder how many more fighters will they have ready to order for Pacman before he's going to have to take a fight against a young, prime fighter who will challenge him stylistically and physically like he hasn't been challenged in years. And no, a 38-year-old Marquez jumping two weight divisions isn't going to do the trick.
(Danny Howard can be reached at dhoward@fighthype.com, Twitter @DBHoward126, and Facebook.)