So glad this thread title will finally change. Hope manny retires.

PBF didn't need the add'l 60-70mil he'd've made from a Pac fight as opposed to some other fight, but what a hit to his legacy, relatively speaking. Had he fought Pac say right after Hatton and knocked him out, very legit case for GOAT. Still an all-time great, but Robinson-Duran-Louis-Ali's spots on Mt Rushmore are safe.

Just epic misread, even inside his cocoon of yesmen, and his own insane narcissism. Never made any sense at all, how can you be such a great fighter yet so terrified of one particular guy?

As for Pac, retire ffs tho zero chance he will. When it goes, it's gone, 34 year old gets knocked cold n' stiff by punch he didn't see, never ever been an example of a guy recovering from that aside from Duran that I recall.

+1

Never changes, hasn't in over a century.

Good post.

I think no PBF v MP at all is way better than PBF v past his best MP. Could you imagine having to listen to PBF for the next 20-30 years talk about how hes GOAT and proved it by beating MP.

If he fought and beat him pre 2010 I think legit case for GOAT, if he fights him any time now(and I was saying this before last nights fight) I dont think it adds much(if anything) to his legacy.

PBF will go down as one of the all time smartest boxers, in many ways.


EDIT - It would add the same to his legacy now as when Lewis beat Tyson.

Both fighters should do themselves a favor and retire. They won't, but they should imo.

Duran's recovery is massively overrated. He beat a bunch of scrubs after getting KTFO by Hearns and won the middleweight title because the judges had total hard-ons for him and wanted Duran to complete that fairytale comeback. Iran Barkley won that match as far as I'm concerned. Every big-time fighter he Duran faced in the mid 80s and beyond beat him.

If Pacman comes back like he says and beats Marquez, it would be a historical comeback and a great way for Pacquiao to finish his career. It would completely dwarf Duran's comeback.

But if I was Marquez, I'd retire. If he fights Pacman again and loses, his knockout will be forgotten in the history books and Pacman will be regarded as the better fighter between the two. JMM has nothing to prove anymore. Time for him to make the right move and go out while history will declare him the better fighter.

Good analysis, except in a few weeks when more money is thrown in the face of Marquez for #5 than he's ever made before in a fight, it will be very hard for him to say NO. As for Pacquiao, I think he actually should go for a fight against Mayweather(take whatever unreasonable pay that he would've never accepted before... say 30-70 or 25-75 split or $20M and Floyd takes the rest whatever that may be) because if he really hasn't slipped(pre-KO Pacquiao was back at close to his best in rounds 4-6) then he still has a chance against Floyd, and if he scores the upset he's back at No.1 P4P without a doubt, whereas if he beat JMM in #5, so what, he still can't touch Mayweather or even Andre Ward in the P4P rankings.

However, despite the fact that he was leading on almost everyone's scorecards, boxers are never the same again when they get KO'd... Pacquiao only needs to look at the guys he's beaten.. Hatton, De La Hoya, Cotto, etc etc... he finished their careers and they were forced to retire or came back and were never the same again... and whether he likes it or not, JMM has probably done irrepairable damage to Pacquiao as a fighter with that one punch.

It was a punch with 1 second left in a round against a guy who is kryptonite to MP in a fight MP was dominating and had already broken his nose. MP wanted to knock JMM out because of their history. He could have easily coasted and won the fight on the decision. It's not like JMM was ever going to bring the fight to MP in later rounds with a broken nose. It was a mistake. I still want to see MP vs PBF, how can anyone who likes boxing not want to see that? GMAFB.

He finished those dudes careers by absolutely dominating those from start to finish. None of those fights are even remotely comparable to this fight.

unless Pacs chin is done there's no reason to retire. He looked the best he has in years, and was probably winning the fight on most peoples scorecards.
He's 5 years younger than Marquez and show no clear sign of being done.

He's a favorite to beat everyone not named Floyd Mayweather at 147. I'd say he's most likely going to be a betting favorite over Marquez in the 5th fight.
He'd go out on a horrible note.
He can easily have 2-3 more fights which is worth what? 50-60 million?

Anyone who doesnt want to hear PBF boast about how hes the GOAT for the next 30 years.

Beating a well past his best MP will not give him that status in anyones eyes but his own.

Im not so sure the KO can be ignored as easy as you suggest, 30+ year old boxers dont have a great history of recovering from these type of KO's.

Floyd wouldn't be close to GOAT even if he did beat a prime Pacquiao. It's ridiculous to even speculate in.

Look at what guys Leonard beat, and he's barely top10.
Pac is not better than Hearns. Not better than Hagler. Not better than Duran.

Floyd is probably top30. Same with Pac.
All talk about either guy being close to top10 is insane.

It's a good point. Every big punch a fighter takes ages and reduces him and that was about the biggest punch I've ever seen. And Pacquiao has taken a good deal of punishment over his career, much of it at the hands of Marquez. It's awful to watch a great fighter who's lost it, in over his head and unable to defend himself. Nobody wants to see another Ali-Holmes nightmare. Trouble is, fighters are tough to convince they're at that point.

From what Pacquiao says it looks like he will keep fighting. Time will tell how much mileage is left on his chin. He took a couple of huge shots from Marquez earlier in the fight. The question will be whether he can still take those kinds of shots. Nobody could have withstood that ko punch.

Coto's chin has looked ok after his fight with Pacquiao. The first Margarito fight really did the most damage to Coto. But Coto still takes a punch. His problem is he can't fight past 8 rounds - even with high altitude training. Hatton's chin looked ok in his comeback fight. But he lacked energy and welterweight power. It was a body shot that took him out. De la Hoya was well done before Pacquiao. Oscar had no business trying to make the 147 weight at his age and only had about 2 rounds of fighting energy in him. Of course, there are plenty of examples that do clearly make your point.

The thing about boxing is, sometimes incredible stuff does happen. Douglas-Tyson. Ali-Foreman. Leonard-Hagler. Who knows? If the fight ever gets made maybe Pacquiao-Mayweather. I'd sure like to see.


PairTheBoard

Ariza on Marquez and Hernandez

http://www.boxingscene.com/pacquiao-...ronger---60319

Anyone who makes an all time pound for pound list is insane. Because of the way the sport works now modern fighters don't really have a chance of being as great as the great fighters from the past.

Wait, is that Lama comforting Manny's wife???

Why wouldnt floyd have the chance to be as great as leonard? He fought way less fights.

Reason? Leonard fought much better fighters.

Its about beating other atg fighters.. Not racking up 100s of wins over cabdrivers.

Because of how diluted boxing is now, Duran, Benitez, Hearns wouldn't be considered as great if they fought in this era. So Leonard's wins over them wouldn't mean as much.

Why wouldn't they be considered as great? How did they come to be considered great in the first place?

It's very easy to spot how skilled a fighter is.
Any contender from the 70s heavyweight boxing would be considered just as great or greater if they fought today.

They came to be considered great by beating what people perceive as great/good fighters. Now that there are a thousand different weight classes and a million different title belts in each one it is very difficult to get true recognition for how good someone is. It is easy to spot a skilled fighter but we have no idea how good a fighter they are.

"Any contender from the 70s heavyweight boxing would be considered just as great or greater if they fought today."

This is just a silly statement really.

I found out today that Ring magazine have put Broner at number 5 on their pound-for-pound list. WTF?

That was ****in heartbreaking. I didn't even see it live because I was in Frankfurt on business and fell asleep during the Gamboa fight due to drinking too much at an Xmas party (and it being 6am in Germany).

Pac had a great 5th round. That was just a perfect punch in the 6th. Pac also tripped over JMM's left foot to magnify the effect. Damn that was so hard to watch.

Was an amazing fight while it lasted.

I haven't read the many pages of posts that are surely about the fight, but I thought I'd check in.

Broner is only 23 years old, is the #1 lightweight in the world, and has dominated nearly every opponent he has faced from start to finish in a fight. He could be p4p #1 four years from now.

anyone know what the line closed at for pac/jmm saturday night?

First of all, who cares about alphabet titles? Is that what make greatness? I hardly think so.

And there were almost the same amount of weightclasses when Ray Leonard fought as there is today. Welterweight, superwelter, middle etc.
The added weightclasses today are Cruiser and supermiddle.

The difference now, is that we have Guerrero, Malignaggi, Kell Brook, Andre Berto and three natural lightweights at the top in welter.
When Leonard fought we had Hearns, Duran, Benitez, Ray Leonard.

Put either of these 4 in todays welter and they will probably be the #1 guy.
That's why neither Pac or Floyd is considered a great welter but rather a great feather or superfeather. That's where they could wreak havoc among the All time greats of past eras.

So all in all, how is it harder to make a historical p4p list than it is to make a p4p list of the current fighters? It's speculative and based on merit, just as it is today.
Beating Benitez, Duran, Hearns, Hagler is such an achievement compared to beating Hatton, Cotto, Castillo that it's hard to even compare.

Well, they wouldn't as they would be facing dog**** quality of fighter outside of the Klitschkos. But They would absolutely be dominating everyone outside of the brothers with a very decent shot at beating them as well.

Because they are much better fighters than almost any hw fighter of today.

Top5 of a random year in the 70s probably was Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Norton, Shavers or young.
And that's excluding Larry Holmes who came in late 70s.

Today top5 is probably Klitschkox2, David Haye, Povetkin, Adamek.

It's just a completely different class of athletes.
And this is true for most weights. The notable exception is supermiddleweight and superbantam.



This discussion is getting kind of watered down itself. Is it your opinion that we can't know that past fighters have had greater accomplishments, do you feel todays fighters are just as good/better, or do you feel it's a waste of time to play around with p4p lists?

I only agree with the last statement. It's a waste of time and not worth much weight, but it's a fun thing to do.

If you agree with the first two statements i disagree.
Mainly because the "past eras" are consisted of 100 years+ while todays era is maybe 10 years = more athletes to choose from "yesterday" than today. Also the sport was bigger in almost all past eras than it is today = more athletes in any given period and better athletes that didn't pick other sports.
There's an argument for the "evolved athlete" but that's only a factor if you can pinpoint how the training is different today than it used to be. In a primitive sport like boxing, that's seldom the case.

If you disagree with that we'll just have to spare everyone involved from a huge spamfest and agree to disagree.

Yeah he could be #1 in four years. Or he could be #5 in four years.
But he sure as hell is not even top10 today based on what he's accomplished.

I hope he moves up to 140. He's got the frame for it and there's a lot of good matchups waiting for him.

Marquez, Matthysse, Rios, Garcia and even Amir Khan if he bounce back.