Pacquiao Remains Dominant In 2016
By: Sean Crose
An interesting article appeared in this publication the other day wherein Matthew N. Becher ran through a list of top candidates for 2016s Fighter of the Year. All candidates were worthy, but I won’t focus here on which one I felt was the years’ very best. I simply want to focus on one of the fighters mentioned – Manny Pacquiao. For, believe it or not, Pacquiao remained dominant in 2016. Just how dominant? Well, he bested potential Hall of Famer Tim Bradley – for the second or third time in a row, depending on how you look at things – then made easy work of rising star Jessie Vargas later in the year.
This, frankly, requires a degree of reflection. For, let’s face it, many if not most fight fans want the Mayweather-Pacquiao era to be over. Sure, they’d pay a ton to see Manny and Floyd go at it again, or even Floyd and white mainstream media fave, Conor McGregor of the UFC (I disdain political correctness, but let’s face it, if McGregor weren’t Caucasian there would be collective head shaking at his behavior rather than winks and smiles). Still and all, people are tired of Floyd and Manny being the faces of the sport.
Here’s the thing, though – Manny doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Here’s something else – the man is still dominant. I can’t say with any certainty that there’s a welterweight or junior welterweight out there who can beat the guy. His pay per view numbers may be down, he may not be what he was, but man, Pacquiao is still something else. To be sure, he still seems to puzzle his opposition, just has he has for ages now. This ability to confuse has been evident with every major opponent he’s faced in the past eight years or so with the exception of Floyd. Furthermore, the Filipino icon remains in great shape, even for his advancing age.
Make no mistake about it, boxing is in a transition period. Old names like Bernard Hopkins are leaving and new names like Vasyl Lomachenko and Bud Crawford are stepping up to the plate. A fighter who is still in top competitive form, however, can’t simply be rushed off the stage. Up and comers like Crawford and perhaps Errol Spence Jr may indeed be able to best Pacquiao, but that’s no guarantee – not even at this late stage of Pacquiao’s career. Like many others, I want to move on from the Manny-Floyd era. If this year convinced me of anything, though, it’s that Pacquiao is going to stick around for a bit longer.
And at the moment at least, there’s no guarantee anyone can do anything about it.