Harold Lederman: Manny Pacquiao Never Faced a Great Jewish Fighter
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Recent comments by Bernard Hopkins, regarding eight-division titlist, Manny Pacquiao, created a firestorm when the former undisputed middleweight (160 pounds) champion told FanHouse that the Filipino super star would have problems with an African American fighter such as "Floyd Mayweather or a Zab Judah or a Shane Mosley."
Pacquiao (53-2-1, 38 knockouts), who is handled by Top Rank Promotions, is coming off of Saturday night's HBO pay-per-view televised victory over Antonio Margarito (38-7, 27 KOs), which added the WBC's vacant junior middleweight (154 pounds) crown to the WBO welterweight (147 pounds) belt that he had already owned.
Pacquiao never has faced an African American fighter.
Hearing the story for the first time, HBO's Harold Lederman quipped, "Well, Manny Pacquiao's never faced a really tough Jewish fighter either."
Before scoring his March unanimous decision over Joshua Clottey in defense of his WBO championship, Lederman pointed out that Pacquiao, after watching video of then-unbeaten WBA junior middleweight king Yuri Foreman, elected not to face the rabbinical student because he was too big.
Foreman eventually lost his crown by knockout to Miguel Cotto, whom Pacquiao had earlier dethroned by 12th-round knockout for the WBO welterweight belt.
This brought to mind this question for Lederman: Is Manny Pacquiao ducking Jewish fighters?
"Manny had an opportunity to fight Yuri Foreman. Now, they're accusing Manny Pacquiao of not fighting a tough African American fighter?" said Lederman, who is in Atlantic City for Saturday night's HBO televised rematch between Paul Williams and WBC middleweight titlist Sergio Martinez.
"That's such nonsense," said Lederman, "because he never fought any great Jewish fighters either."
Lederman, who is Jewish, was joking, of course