The Greatest After Ali (Part 14)

Whatever will result from the “Dream Match” between Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao on Dec. 6 in Las Vegas can almost be visualized now from what their respective handlers are saying about how their fighters will perform come fight time. With the glitches that earlier marred the make- up of this fight now settled like in the sharing of the overall earnings, though the exact figure is not revealed and in the “overweight penalty” clause raised to an unprecedented and unbelievable $3M per pound to the satisfaction of the Pacquiao camp, the rest that can be heard now are in the preparations and boasts of each camp of their fighters’ chances. And where they are being said so loud are from the handlers of the fighters themselves.

Hiring a trainer who knows best how to fight Pacquiao, De La Hoya took Ignacio “Nacho” Beristain, a veteran trainer of the Marquez brothers, Rafael and Juan Manuel who both became world champions with the later having fought Pacquiao in two classic fights. Boasting of having trained fighters in a span of 40 years and pride himself with 16 world champions to his credit including the Marquez brothers, Beristain says that Pacquiao with his small frame is not fit to be in the 147 lb. or welterweight division. He also predicts that De La Hoya will give Pacquiao a “tremendous beating” that he will slide back to the 135 lb. division after his humiliation.

Meanwhile, on the Pacquiao camp, trainer Freddie Roach, a two-time “Trainer of the Year” keeps saying that his fighter can and will overcome all De La Hoya’s advantages in height, size and reach with a much superior boxing skill, speed and power in both hands. Having handled and guided Pacquiao from the time he sought and won by a knockout the world super bantamweight title in 2002 to become a feared fighter, Roach sees Pacquiao concentrating his punches on De La Hoya’s body especially that he will be weakened by starving himself to keep his weight down to 147 lb. the rest of the training days till weigh-in time. Despite having trained De la Hoya in losing to Floyd Mayweather, Jr. last year, Roach knows too well what to teach further his fighter how to fight De La Hoya from what he learned about him.

From all these rhetoric by the fighters’ handlers and the confidence as expressed by the fighters themselves especially by De La Hoya, there are no doubts that they show similarities from the Foreman-Ali title fight in 1974, that perhaps was the most interesting of all of Ali’s title fights. As his usual behavior, Ali always wants to take all the limelight in his fights that despite being installed a heavy underdog this time in his challenge, he was still the most heard and sought-after character of the event. With every Ali fight a big news every time, Ali never runs out of subjects to tell everyday what he plans to do in the ring that the Foreman camp always reacted immediately to his every words. So as not to be outtalked and upstaged by Ali in every way, the Foreman camp also went on to release their own high profile boasts of how Foreman being the champion will fare against an old man, Ali.

Dick Sadler, Foreman’s manager belittled Ali so much that he even went on as quoted in a Nov. 11, 1974 Sports Illustrated magazine as saying, “To win, Ali must have some sort of a break, a fluke. There’s too much against him — me, Sandy Saddler and Archie Moore – that’s two ‘Hall of Famers’ and over 300 knockouts between us. And, George Foreman …. no, no, that’s too many things.” As can be glimpsed, trainers Saddler and Moore were former world champions; Saddler, a jr. lightweight and Moore, perhaps the most durable of all fighters in history was a light heavyweight having fought Ali when he was already 48 while Ali was just 20 years old. Without minding their boasts and to keep the media and fans tuned in but puzzled, Ali kept on singing different tunes every time that he will beat Foreman on “cuts and bruises”, that he will do a “stick and dance” kind of fight, and so forth. With everybody going confused of what Ali was up to, they all played right to Ali’s ears and brain. This writer was confident too, that Ali would win that he even predicted the correct outcome to his best friend, however, just “how” Ali would fight Foreman, he did not know and it’s not until Ali unveiled his long-kept secret weapon, the rope-a-dope.

There’s no ingenuity in the rope-a-dope tactic as it is just a common boxing tactic refined and turned into a brilliant defensive tactical stance, a “trap” with a name now that only unskilled and unsuspecting fighters like Foreman or Mike Tyson would fall into. As stated earlier, Ali had been watching and studying Foreman’s rise to the top that Ali saw he doesn’t have the skills of a fighter and that he was short on stamina as most of his fights ended early in knockouts. So, what’s an intelligent and smart fighter like Ali would do? Well, taunt, ridicule and invite him to hit harder just his sides until he runs out of gas and grasps for air. Believing he can hurt Ali, Foreman dumbly took the bait and he was KO’d. As analyzed and accepted later, Ali misled and fooled everybody without exception that even included his very own coach and trainer Angelo Dundee and all his entourage that Sports Illustrated bannered their news item, “How Ali fooled them all”.

From the time Ali emerged into the sporting world, detractors of his claim to “greatness” as a fighter and as a man are never absent in every mention of his name or in his every stint. Just like now, many still disagree of his claim and this is understandable as these are all just motivated by envy and hatred of his big mouth and not of his accomplishments. But what they just don’t know is that it is by his being loquacious that he is known for as a great fighter as he can predict how his fight will go and where he is headed to in the world of boxing. In fact, early in his amateur days, Ali had been used to bragging and predicting that he will win an Olympic gold medal for the US, that he’ll become world champion and that he will be the “greatest” and so forth. True to his words, he did all and he really is. Such that this writer believes so that in this world, it is only Ali who deserves to be given the “rights to brag” as it is only “he” who can back up his words, no other. However, his value as a fighter are not just his biggest assets, but also in other categories where he excels most. And one where he is so known for is in the way how fast he spews out words before he got Parkinson’s disease.

To show just how fast his mouth is, a movie titled a.k.a. Cassius Clay released in the early 70’s showed how critics and fans found it out. With his mouth talking fast on one side of the screen and his fists hitting a speed ball on the other and ran on the same speed, any viewer would surely agree and conclude that his mouth can spew out more words faster than his fists can hit the speed ball. And the reactions were unanimous as all viewers are amused and delighted of the scene while most howled or whistled their approval.

So, if Ali’s fast spewed out words described by critics and detractors as just “phony” was to be the factor that Foreman was misled into believing he can easily knock out Ali just like others, perhaps, Beristain’s wide and well taken credentials would not easily make Pacquiao to fall or believe too, that Beristain can turn De La Hoya into a sort of a Superman or matador. That’s because just like Ali, Pacquiao used to say, “He fears no one”. And this writer believes so.