What made Pacquiao special
His unique fighting style
Bert Sugar, a great boxing historian called him the greatest left-handed fighter ever
That’s quite high praise considering there have been other great southpaws in the past like Pernell Whittaker(Sweet Pea), Marvin Hagler(Marvellous) and others. What Pacquiao had over every other southpaw was a rare combination of blazing hand speed and punching power. His hand speed with those crazy angles and footwork. Then you add to that a flyweight who can punch and stop guys from the welterweight and junior middleweight divisions. This kind of stuff is never heard before and probably will never be heard after either. I heard
Teddy Atlas once said “Punchers are born, not made”
and I agree with this statement. Pacquiao was gifted with surprising power in his left hand, and his power carried in all weight classes, I saw an interview where Shane Mosley described and I quote
He has power, exceptional power, that I’ve never been hit with before.
The fact that Mosley has sparred and fought much bigger guys like light-heavyweights in camp and fights shows how gifted and strong Pacquiao left hand was.
Fan favourite
We all love a brawl. An aggressive style is always going to garner more attention and more PPVs over fighters who are skilled defensively and do just enough to win a fight. His all-time classics against Barrera, Morales, and Marquez are an example of what we would identify as a Mexican style.
Watch Pacquiao’s performance against Margarito. In that fight, he threw 1069 total punches with 44% accuracy. That’s stat line is even more impressive when you realise that Margarito weighed around 165 pounds and Pacquiao still put on a beating on Margarito breaking his right orbital bone. Beating Cotto who then went on to win titles at middleweight was another impressive feat by Pacquiao. In the modern day where fighters are barely fighting each other once and are scared to lose their undefeated record, Pacquiao fought Morales 3 times, Barrera 2 times and Marquez 4 times.
The fact that he beat all-time greats from Mexico in Marquez, Barrera, Morales, De La Hoya and other good Mexican fighters and still has thousands of fans from Mexico who root and cheer for him every time he fights shows his fan following and popularity which is not just limited to US and Philippines. Another reason for Pacquiao’s popularity worldwide is his humble nature, refusing to disrespect opponents and not engage in trash talk to promote a fight. This is what define’s his personality and that’s a primary reason why fans across the globe love him.
This is how crazy Pacquiao is, at age 42 he was ready to take on Spence who is an undefeated and probably the best welterweight out there. That fight would have gone ahead had Spence not suffered an unfortunate eye injury. His attitude to not care about his record and take fights where no win/outcome is guaranteed, an attitude which mostly is missing from modern-day fighters is what makes him special and a fan favourite.
Best performance
This is so tough. To single out and pick one performance out of such an illustrious career considering he has had so many classics and would not be fair, but if I had to, I would pick his performance against Cotto. He was sensational and close to perfect that night.
This is the stat which shows how bad of a beating Cotto took, Pacquiao landed 276 out of 560 (49%) power punches on Cotto. Had never seen Cotto take this kind of punishment before the Pacquiao fight. Cotto was so good that he went on to then stop Sergio Martinez who was one of the greatest middleweights of our time. This Cotto win just goes to show how great of a fighter Pacquiao was.
Fighter of year and Fighter of decade(2000-2010)
BWAA, Ring Magazine, WBC. This one is interesting because from 2000 to 2010, he was unquestionably the fighter of the decade, but since the Margarito fight in 2010, there was a decline in his performance. His hand speed and footwork were not the same and that killer instinct was missing but this is what makes him so special. All the greats, when they do lose a step, they are still the best of the rest.
Pacquiao fought 15 times since the Margarito fight in 2010 and lost 4 times, out of which 2 losses are quite controversial which includes losing to Bradley and Horn. The majority of fans including myself and the boxing pundit think that Pacquiao won those fights. So he lost 2 times, one to Marquez by KO and UD loss to Mayweather which is still quite impressive if you lose 2 of your 15 fights despite not being at your peak. This is what separates Pacquiao from most of the greats, because unlike other greats, when they do lose a step they start taking a lot of punishment and are forced into retirement. Roy Jones or Ali is the best example, they were invincible/flawless during their peak, Both of them being my favourite fighters but as soon as they were on the decline in their later stage of career, it was tough to watch, and the kind of punishment they took during that period should have never happened and they should have retired instead rather than being forced into. This was never the case with Pacquiao, he never took such kind of beating or punishment and was still able to perform at a high level.
His performance against Keith Thurman at age 40, defeating an undefeated welterweight at his peak and becoming the oldest welterweight champ in boxing history is a testament to the greatness of Pacquiao as a fighter and what he stood for as long as he fought inside the ring. Never be scared to take chances.
PPV star
Pacquiao has generated approximately a 22.42million total pay-per-view (PPV) buys, which is an enormous feat. That’s more than what Mike Tyson or De La Hoya did in their careers and ranks 5th in the all-time highest PPV list generated by stars.
Case for GOAT argument
There can never be a unanimous answer for this. Here are some names which I think are part of the GOAT argument Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Roberto Durán, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roy Jones Jr, Manny Pacquiao, and Floyd Mayweather Jr and a solid case can be made for any of the names mentioned.
Here are some of the unique accomplishments achieved by Pacquiao which makes a case for him to be the GOAT. This accomplishment will never be bettered which solidifies Pacquiao’s case as GOAT even more.
Champion in 8 different weight classes.
Lineal champ in 5 different weight classes.
Champion in 4 different decades.
There are 17 weight classes in boxing out of which Pacquiao won titles in 8 different weight classes and he skipped a couple of weight classes(junior bantamweight and bantamweight). Had he not skipped those 2 weight classes, he would be champion in 10 different weight classes.
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