Has Pacquiao Avoided Fighting African Americans?
By Brent Matteo Alderson
A week before Manny Pacquiao’s demolition of Ricky Hatton, John David Jackson, one of the sport’s top trainers and a former two time world champion, commented that the Filipino legend has avoided fighting African American boxers through out his career. Not surprisingly Jackson’s comments infuriated Pacquiao supporters and the socially charged issue sparked debate throughout the boxing industry.
So the question remains, has Manny Pacquiao avoided fighting African American fighters?
Now there are a few points of contention in regards to Manny avoiding black fighters. The first is with Joan Guzman. Now Guzman isn’t African American, he’s from the Dominican Republic, but his style exemplifies the type of skill set that is representative of good African American fighters.
Guzman is very good defensively, fast, fights in a constant rhythm that he combines with solid footwork, and throws crisp combinations.
So even though Guzman is a Latin American of African descent his style is the epitome of what boxing people consider to be the quintessential African American style.
Now Joan Guzman won the WBO 122 pound title in 2002 while Manny Pacquioa was the IBF’s 122 pound champ. Pacquiao had won the title a year earlier and moved up to 126 pounds to face a close to his prime Marco Antonio Barrera in 2003 in a bout in which he was a heavy underdog.
Thus for the limited time that the two fighters were champs at that weight, a fight between the two wasn’t very plausible.
At the time a fight with the Filipino was a high risk low reward proposition because he didn’t start to become one of the sports transcendent starts until after he moved up and stopped Barrera .
So even though both guys were champs at 122 pounds and were both considered to be excellent fighters with lots of potential there wasn’t a ground swell of support for the match.
And generally solid matches between titlists in the lower weight divisions don’t occur unless public interest generates enough buzz to entice one of the networks to pay for such a bout.
Even though a fight with Guzman was a improbability at 122 pounds, Guzman’s ascendance up the different weight classes kind of mirrored Pacquiao’s and the Dominican established himself as one of the top fighters at 130 pounds in 2006 with a pedestrian win over the dangerous Jorge Barrios.
He then further cemented his place as one of the top fighters in the division with an impressive win over Humberto Soto, a world class pugilist that hasn’t legitimately lost another fight in the past seven years.
Now Pacquiao had moved up to 130 pounds in the spring of 2005 for his first fight with Erik Morales and remained at the weight until he moved up to lightweight to fight David Diaz in the summer of 2008.
So for approximately a two year period, both Pacquiao and Guzman shared a spot at or near the top of another division.
Now during that period, Pacquiao engaged in a trilogy with Morales and in return matches with Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez.
All five of those fights were highly anticipated and considered solid match ups going in and each one entailed considerable risk, but the fact still remains: Guzman was a champion and one of the better fighters in two different divisions right along side Pacquiao and the two never fought.
Alex Camponovo, the matchmaker and director of operations for Thompson Boxing, told BoxingScene.com that he doesn’t believe Pacquiao purposely avoided Guzman, “Pacquiao had so many changes with the different promoters. The fight just didn’t make business-sense.”
Contrarily John David Jackson told BoxingScene that he feels as though the fight never happened because Pacquiao’s team knew that Guzman’s style would pose problems, “Freddie Roach, out of his own mouth said he would never let Pacquiao fight Joan Guzman when they were both top guys at 130. That came out of his trainer’s mouth, that’s a fact.”
Jackson also pointed out the debacle with Zahir Raheem. The 1996 American Olympian upset Erik Morales on a doubleheader in Los Angeles in the fall of 2005 that was supposed to set up a second match between Morales and Pacquiao.
Instead of fighting Raheem, Pacquiao went ahead with the fight with El Terrible and John David Jackson, along with a number of other astute observers, felt it was a strategic move on the part of Manny’s management team, “Jim Lampley on HBO stated they would be fools to let Manny fight Zahir Raheem after he upset Erik Morales,” noted Jackson.
Usually doubleheaders are supposed to be eliminators with the winners to face each other in future bouts, but Raheem was never afforded that opportunity.
Something similar also occurred in 2006 with Zab Judah and Floyd Mayweather. Zab lost to Carlos Baldomir and went straight into an already scheduled bout with Mayweather, bypassing Baldomir who had wrested the linear title from him. The difference is Mayweather made things right in his very next bout when he easily dominated the Argentinean strong man. Manny Pacquiao never fought Zahir Raheem.
Also, when Manny Pacquiao moved up to lightweight he handpicked his opponent and fought David Diaz for the WBC title. A fighter perceived as the least threatening of all the champions at 135 pounds. Jackson feels as though Pacquiao is receiving more accolades than his accomplishments merit and feels like the Filipino legend should have stepped up to the plate and fought some of the good black fighters around such as Nate Campbell and Zahir Raheem.
“It’s not so much who’s the best and I can’t blame them for fighting the guys they did to make the millions. That’s what boxing is about. To make the most money with the least amount of risk so you can get out of this games healthy, wealthy, and wise. I don’t have a problem with that, but when they say he is pound for pound the best I have a problem with that because he hasn’t fought a good black fighter from the states. Fans can say I’m crazy, but facts are facts."
"It’s more the promoters and the managers. All fighters will fight, they don’t care. They are being smart maximizing the dollar and minimizing the risk, but you can’t call Pacquiao the best pound for pound fighter in the world, he’s definitely one of them. When Campbell beat Juan Diaz, Manny didn’t say lets fight, you’re the number one lightweight. No, he moved on, and financially I can’t blame him. When you can make some money fighting De La Hoya why would you fight someone like Nate Campbell, a rough tough individual for less money. No one at this point dominates the sport enough to be called pound for pound the best.”
In defense of Manny Pacquiao he has a stellar resume. Barrera, Morales, and Marquez are universally recognized as three of the fifteen greatest Mexican fighters in the history of the sport.
And yes Manny did forgo a fight with Zahir Raheem, but the second Morales fight was a bigger money fight and the Pac-man was anxious to avenge his loss from their first fight.
And maybe Raheem and Guzman would have received shots at Pacquiao if they would have remained successful, but Raheem lost to Acelino Freitas and Guzman failed to make weight for his fight with Nate Cambell and pulled out at the last minute and was idle for a year which hurt the momentum he had built in his wins over Soto and Barrios.
And Pacquiao came into the fight with De La Hoya as an underdog and even though Ricky Hatton had lost to Mayweather he was undefeated at 140 pounds and had a good win over Luis Collazo at welterweight and had re-established himself at 140 pounds with solid wins over Juan Lazcano and Paul Malignaggi, two world class junior welterweights.
Chris Arreola’s trainer Henry Ramirez doesn’t think you can criticize Pacquiao’s resume, “He’s beaten four first ballot hall of famers in Barrera, Morales, Marquez, and De La Hoya. Morales and Barrera are legends. He has an incredible resume. I don’t see how you can criticize the quality of opposition he’s faced.”
Pacquiao really does have some incredible fistic accomplishments. He has won world titles in six different weight classes from flyweight to Junior Welterweight and he’s defeated a plethora of fighters who were ranked in the upper echelons of the pound for pound rankings.
Thus I think it would be to harsh to state that Pacquiao has “ducked” African American fighters through out his career and think it would be more accurate to say that his team tried to steer him away from certain styles and didn’t fight certain guys that he didn’t necessarily have to fight.
At this point in his career Manny Pacquiao has already solidified a lasting greatness and doesn’t have to win another big fight to establish his legacy.
As of now, he’s a first ballot hall of famer and will probably already be ranked amongst the thirty greatest fighters in the history of the sport, but he still has time left and can move up that list closer to the ultra-elite, next to guys like Ray Robinson, Roberto Duran, and Willie Pep, but he’s going to need to beat at least one good African American fighter before he’s through and it would be a whole lot better for his place in his history if that fighter is named Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Notes:
Favorite Quote: - Before his first fight with Rocky Marciano, Jersey Joe Walcott stated, “He can’t fight. If I don’t whip him take my name off the record books!” For the record the Rock won the first fight with a picturesque right hand in the 13th round and he won the second fight with a surprising first round knock out.
People on the messageboards were writing that John David is a racist and he wants to dispel that notion. John comes from multi-racial background, his mother is Mexican and his father is black and there are Filipinos in his family.
I think Marquez will give Mayweather problems. The Pretty Boy isn’t going to out-speed Marquez who is a natural featherweight, especially after a long layoff. I still think Mayweather will beat Pacquiao every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I went and saw the Tyson documentary last weekend and having read a couple of the more well-known biographies on Tyson the film still brought some fresh perspective on a couple of the more well publicized moments in his life such as the Barbara Walters interview with Robin Givens and his time in prison for rape. At one point in the film Tyson commented that after he was disqualified for biting Holyfield that he went home and “smoked some weed and drank some liquor and went to bed.”
My favorite Tyson biography is Blood Season by the late Phil Berger, who also happens to be my favorite boxing writer of all time.
In talking about the greatest fighters to never win a world title you have to mention guys like Charles Burley, Jimmy Bivins, and Peter Jackson. I think Doug Jones is also one of the best fighters to never win a world title. He lost a controversial decision to Ali in Ring Magazine’s 1963 fight of the year, he knocked out an undefeated Bob Foster, one of the best Light-Heavies in history, and beat some decent heavyweights even though he only stood six feet tall and weighed around 180 pounds. There is no way Jones wouldn’t have won at least a couple of titles in this contemporary boxing landscape
I finally watched the ESPN documentary on Julio Cesar Chavez last week in its entirety and it was well done. They did a good job of enlightening viewers about the social and cultural forces which molded Chavez. I just wish they would have gotten permission to use actual fight footage instead of still photos. Also I was surprised by the end of the film. After Chavez lost the last bout of his career he was in the locker room devastated, with his face in a towel crying about the loss. I always knew Chavez was a proud warrior, but the fact that he was so distraught about the loss in a fight which occurred long after his career at the world class level was over illustrates just how proud of a warrior he actually was and helps fans understand how his pride could actually influence him to believe that he won the second fight with Frankie Randall and the Whitaker fight.
