With or without Oscar De La Hoya in his resumé, Manny Pacquiao will always be the second greatest fighter after Muhammad Ali to this writer. As the talks for a possible De La Hoya-Pacquiao “dream fight” suspended for now or even close to being terminated with the Pacquiao camp giving up to talk further on an unfair sharing scheme of just 70-30 offered by Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) owned by De La Hoya, Pacquiao’s coach Freddie Roach just doesn’t give up yet. So confident that his fighter can beat De La Hoya any time, Roach even went on to promise that if Pacquiao ever loses, if the fight takes place at all, he will not get his 10% share of the prize money as trainer’s fee. Despite just being his trainer and mentor, Roach has always looked up to Pacquiao as if he were his son. Such strong and unwavering confidence in Pacquiao that Roach had showed and expressed many times is unheard of and unprecedented in boxing. This is so unlike in Ali’s case that despite his long partnership with trainer Angelo Dundee that dates back to Ali’s early days in his career, Dundee hasn’t even expressed such views of confidence in Ali. And these are all despite Ali’s strong and deep-hearted confidence in himself. Roach is unlike Dundee and just like him, this writer also shares the same views on Pacquiao.
Not seeing much that the deal will still progress for the satisfactions of Pacquiao and his group, Roach has expressed that Pacquiao accepts the offer for the fight to go on regardless of the purse. As he tries to clarify it, such privilege will only come once as De La Hoya has vowed that this will be his last fight and that there will not be another one like it coming since only De La Hoya can offer such huge spectacle being one of the protagonist himself. As projected by GBP, the fight can gross up to US$100M in live gate receipts, pay-per-view proceeds and other endorsements by considering that both men are world-beaters in their respective divisions and are also exciting fighters. But how Pacquiao will weigh his options is one worth watching as both fighters have their own “conflict of interest” before.
As can be well remembered, Manny Pacquiao was embroiled a few months ago in a tug-of-war court battle between De La Hoya and Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum as to who really owns the rights to Pacquiao’s fights. With both promoters seeing Pacquiao as boxing’s “gold mine” with whom they can extract millions by being his promoter, each gave Pacquaio a total of $1.5M in cash as signing bonus. First to have him sign a contract was De La Hoya who gave $500,000.00 for a specific number of fights. On learning of this, Arum countered by doubling his. And so for a while, Pacquiao got stalled. But with both men seeing the futility of their court battle going nowhere that can derail or ruin Pacquiao’s colorful career, the two settled their case out of court with understanding that they co-promote future Pacquiao fights. Thus, Pacquiao resurrected a few months later to win two division world titles in succession leading to this transaction.
Whatever Roach is really up to in pushing to have this match-up to take place, he alone knows. However, if what he is just after is for Pacquiao to have a legacy of his own as a great fighter, well, Pacquiao has already done so. In fact, with or without De La Hoya among the great fighters he has fought and beaten or lost to, this writer has long considered Pacquiao as the greatest fighter after Ali. For sure, De La Hoya knows as well that outside of Pacquiao, he sees and believes that no other fighter can give him a real fight to make his farewell fight a memorable one worth praising but Pacquiao. And how Pacquiao and Roach will view all these, the glitter of the millions of US dollars that it carries with it is somehow not to be discounted.
Although De La Hoya’s selfish offer of just 70-30 sharing scheme is not at all reasonable considering that only Pacquiao can generate such huge interest to the fight, this writer sees there’s just no chance he will back off from this position. Probably seeing also that this is just right for a fighter of Pacquiao’s caliber, De La Hoya somehow neglected his other potentials of putting up a really good fight and excitement to fight fans worldwide. By depriving Pacquiao of this once–in-a-lifetime payday, it also shows that De La Hoya fears of being upstaged that he doesn’t like to give more. And so as to lessen the chance of meeting Pacquiao, he sticks tight to this offer or in its simple term, it’s a “take it or leave it” offer. For Pacquiao, it won’t matter much if De La Hoya will give in to his counter offer of a 60-40 sharing scheme or not as he still has plenty of time to prove his worth against other great fighters above or in his level the likes of Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, Juan Manuel Marquez or even Floyd Mayweather if he decides to come back to test Pacquiao. But can De La Hoya find a better replacement for Pacquiao that will help him in his plan of quitting the sport in grand fashion and style?
To be continued…
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The Greatest After Ali(Part 6) If the De La Hoya-Pacquiao “dream fight” ever takes place before the end of this year as it is being proposed, it would surely be one for the record books.Read more…