Underdog Boxing: This would have been the perfect time for Pacquiao-Valero

Who will Manny Pacquiao fight this May? With the Floyd Mayweather’s 90-day jail sentence, the answer to this question is not easy to answer.

There are two obvious contenders to the Pacquiao lottery and these are Juan Manuel Marquez (53-6-1, 39 KOs) and Timothy Bradley (28-0-0, 12 KOs).

A fourth fight between Pacquiao and Marquez makes a lot of sense on paper. They have fought three times in the past seven years and they have given us 36 action-packed rounds. However, even if people know that a fourth fight will be as exciting as the first three, few people want to see it again. The consensus is that another fight will play out exactly like the first three and the result will again be highly scrutinized.

Marquez feels that he has been on the wrong end of the decision in his three fights against Pacquiao and he has openly said that he wants 10 million dollars if they want him to fight Pacquiao again. He also demands that the fight be held in Mexico.

The other option is to fight Bradley. Top Rank Promotions recently signed the reigning WBO light welterweight champion to groom him for a fight against Pacquiao in the near future. They gave him an easy opponent in Joel Casamayor in the undercard of Pacquiao-Marquez 3 and he managed to score the knockout but his performance was still largely underwhelming.

A surprise entry has been added into the mix as it appears that there is also interest in pitting Pacquiao against Lamont Peterson  (30-1-1, 15 KOs) who scored the biggest win of his life when he dethroned Amir Khan a couple of weeks ago.

Marquez, Bradley, and Peterson are all tremendous fighters but there is little excitement in the possibility of Pacquiao facing one of them. The problem, at least in my opinion, is that they are all highly technical fighters and, truth be told, the boxing world does not want to see a fight between Pacquiao and an in-ring tactician unless that in-ring tactician’s name is Floyd Mayweather.

People want to see someone who will face Pacquiao in the middle of the ring and trade with him until one of them goes down. People want a bloody brawl with two fighters throwing power punches like it was going out of style. People want Manny Pacquiao versus Edwin Valero.

Yes, I know. Valero is dead. This fight is not going to happen. Yet I can’t help but feel robbed. As a boxing fan, it pains me to accept that we didn’t get to see what could have been a brutal battle between Pacquiao and Valero and we’re on the verge of not seeing the best fight of this generation in Pacquiao versus Mayweather.

“It would have been a really good fight,” Mario Morales, Valero’s former trainer, told me. “Valero has many flaws but he is tough and he does not stop fighting,” he added.  
Valero had an astounding record of 27 wins without a loss. All 27 of his wins came via knockout ; 19 of these knockouts came in the very first round.

Wouldn’t a fight between Pacquiao and Valero get more interest than Pacquiao versus Bradley or Peterson? Wouldn’t it be able to sell as much as Pacquiao-Marquez? Valero might not have the support that Marquez has but Valero does have a hardcore set of followers who have followed him throughout his career.

The phrase “he has no regard for human life” gets thrown around often in sports coverage. People in the NBA say it when LeBron James plows his way through a phalanx of defenders and dunks the ball emphatically through the hoop. But in Valero’s case, it actually had literal meaning. He was like a caged animal in the ring; he won’t stop punching until his opponent is down for the count. Blood may be streaming from his head but he shows no pain. He just moves forward with his take-no-prisoners attitude and beats the living hell out of his opponents.

I am not saying that Valero had enough to beat Pacquiao. He was crude at best, relying solely on power to win fights. However, Pacquiao-Valero would have been loads of fun for as long as it lasted. The fight could be over in three rounds but I’m sure it would have been worth the price of admission.   

This could have been it; the perfect timing for Pacquiao versus Valero. We need to see Pacquiao in a war again soon as his prime days as slowly passing by and Valero would have been the perfect opponent. Pacquiao needs to be in the ring against a beast to bring out the best in him.

Valero captured out attention because he was a monster inside the ring; too bad he was a bigger monster outside it. - OMG, GMA News

Source: www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/242896/sports/opinion/underdog-boxing-this-would-have-been-the-perfect-time-for-pacquiao-valero