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Ring Magazine: Pacquiao barely keeps pound-for-pound crown
By Angelo Guitierrez (philstar.com)
MANILA, Philippines – Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao remains The Ring Magazine’s No. 1 pound-for-pound king despite his controversial win over Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez in Las Vegas this Sunday.
"Pacquiao survives as the RING's No. fighter by a hair," Ring Magazine's Michael Rosenthal said in a statement posted on The Ring's website.
Rosenthal said that the magazine's editorial board nearly declared the No. 1 pound-for-pound position vacant after Pacquiao’s "sub-par performance" during his fight with Marquez last Sunday.
"In the end, though, we decided to leave the pound-for-pound rankings as is for one simple reason: All but one member of the Ratings Advisory Panel who provided input and the entire RING Editorial Board believed it was the right thing to do," he said.
The No. 2 position is being held by Floyd Mayweather Jr. followed by Sergio Martinez and Nonito Donaire. Marquez is at No. 5.
Rosenthal said that they will consider putting Mayweather ahead of Pacquiao if he turns in an outstanding performance or if Pacquiao "stumbles again" in his next fight.
He said that they also considered moving Marquez up the rankings, but they could not because Mayweather, Martinez and Donaire "don't deserve to be demoted."
Meanwhile, Rosenthal said that The Ring hopes that Pacquiao and Mayweather will agree once and for all to a faceoff.
There are reports that the camps of Mayweather and Pacquiao are working for a May 2012 fight. Top Rank's Bob Arum, meanwhile, said that they are also working for a fourth fight between Pacquiao and Marquez on the same date.
Rosenthal also enumerated several considerations that The Ring's editorial team considered in keeping Pacquiao's pound-for-pound king title.
- Pacquiao wasn’t fighting a chump. Marquez is the No. 5 fighter in the world pound for pound. And Pacquiao beat him, at least officially.- A great fighter shouldn’t necessarily be demoted because another great fighter has his number. We didn’t think less of Muhammad Ali because he had trouble with Ken Norton three times. The same with Willie Pep and Sandy Saddler in their series.
- A fighter shouldn’t necessarily be demoted because he has an off night, if that’s what it was on Saturday. Sergio Martinez didn’t look great against Darren Barker but no one clamored for him to be demoted.
- Pacquiao has accomplished more than Mayweather in recent years. The Filipino is 9-0 against big-name opponents since the beginning of 2008; Mayweather is 3-0 in that time.
- Mayweather isn’t exactly coming off a sterling performance. He looked good against Victor Ortiz for three-plus rounds but scored a knockout when Ortiz wasn’t looking.
- And you can’t say that Mayweather should supplant Pacquiao because hedefeated Marquez more easily. That doesn’t take into account styles and strengths. Plus, Pacquiao beat Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya more easily than Mayweather did.
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