Could De La Hoya fight Pacquiao?

[El Gamo]

Read through Merchant's argument; it doesn't seem that ridiculous:

"First, once upon a time, it wasn't unusual for outstanding champions to fight way over their best weight to make money," Merchant said.

Merchant, who has forgotten more boxing than most of us know, reeled off a number of examples to support his fantasy:

• Sugar Ray Robinson, the generally recognized No.1 pound-for-pound fighter in history, was the welterweight and middleweight champion, who moved up for a shot at light heavyweight champ Joey Maxim in 1952 and was stopped in the 14th round of a fight Robinson had dominated until succumbing to heat exhaustion.

• Henry Armstrong, the pound-for-pound legend who simultaneously held the featherweight, lightweight and welterweight championships in 1938, challenged Caferino Garcia for the middleweight title in 1940 and got a draw.

• England's Ted "Kid" Lewis, who fought from flyweight all the way to heavyweight, was at his best at welterweight, where he had two reigns as champion between 1915 and 1919. But that didn't stop Lewis from challenging Georges Carpentier for the light heavyweight title in 1922 (and getting knocked out in the first round).

• Mickey Walker, a Hall of Famer who was welterweight champ and middleweight champ in the 1920s, twice challenged for the light heavyweight title. He also fought future heavyweight champ Jack Sharkey to a draw, despite being outweighed by 29 pounds.

For more recent examples, Merchant also had ammunition:

• Roy Jones Jr., who won titles at middleweight and super middleweight and was the reigning light heavyweight champion when he moved up to heavyweight for a shot at John Ruiz's alphabet title in 2003. Jones won it in dominant fashion.

• Bernard Hopkins, who after his dominant 20-defense middleweight title reign ended against Jermain Taylor, jumped up 15 pounds and easily won the light heavyweight title from Antonio Tarver last year.

But these examples really mean nothing.
Robinson and Armstrong... not only did they fight a long time ago, but they were 2 of the 4 best fighters ever. They could do things that other fighters can't do.

Lewis and Walker, that happened over 80 or 90 years ago.

Jones was able to move up because he was a lightning quick fighter who could AVOID CONTACT for 12 rounds. If Jones had gone toe-to-toe with a heavyweight, he would have gotten beaten. But he had the ability to make a guy miss for 12 rounds. This is the exact opposite of how Pacquiao fights. Pac is a straight ahead high-contact fighter.

Hopkins only went up from middle to light heavy, which is not a huge move, and Hopkins was always very drawn at 160, he easily could have moved to 175 years earlier. Hopkins didn't even look that much smaller when he fought Tarver. And again, Hopkins was a great defensive fighter who could avoid blows. Manny does not fight like this.

SweetPea,dude,your posts are awesome. CC. Merchant makes good points but Manny only fights one way and that would not make for a great fight v Oscar who must have to go through ALOT OF WORK to get down to 147 now!

[Pugilistic]

simple no

[Hairdoo]

I can't believe even Arum is on the band wagon;

"We’ll take it," Arum told ESPN's Rafael, adding: "I don’t even have to call Manny. I am sure he would accept the challenge without question."

maybe the prelims should consist of a trapeze act, lion show and some clowns

[BoomBoom]

This whole topic is insane to me. Maybe Bernard Hopkins-Juan Diaz can be the undercard. Im always defending Merchant but he clearly needs to get off the sauce and start taking his senility pills again.

[boozeboxer]

De La Hoya is the most over-rated boxer today. This would be a stupid meaningless fight. If Pac won he would get to much credit for fighting a cross dresser and if ODLH won, well he could finally retire and leave us alone. But ODLH would be expected to win.

As far as being a fucking idiot, this topic takes the cake, although I would rather see Hopkins-Wlad....as I am into pure sadistic entertainment.

[No Contest]

They could fight if they agreed to no weight limits, and I doubt anyone would sanction it. De La Hoya would kick the shit outta him and it wouldnt even be entertaining. If this was Oscar from the early nineties then yes it could've happened, now? Let me have some of what your smoking. I think the superfeather ODLH was a damn good fighter and pretty close to unbeatable.

[pacfan]

At last, the ultimate fight all the loyal pac-fans have been waiting for is in the horizon. Whew! I can't wait.

Seriously, with my due respect to our good boss Kkizzer, I'm even against pac moving up to 135 and now this talks of him fighting the Golden Boy comes. Are they serious, they're just kidding, right? Oscar won't even feel pac's punches and on the other hand, Oscar's punches will... ...never mind!..

...Let's get to the next topic...

this fight should only happen if they want pac to retire.

On a second thought, maybe taking couple of good shots and running away with ten's of millions of dollars might not be a bad ideal. That should keep Ara happy.

[pacfan]

Can't believe some of you guys taking this seriously, c'mon guys, they're just after the zillions the Golden Boy brings in.

[No Contest]

That would be some old school style boxing , put the two big money guys together even if there 3 divisions apart...lol it would be freaking awesome if Pacquiao won, pulled off a Armstrong.