TERENCE CRAWFORD'S TWO-DIVISION JUMP FOR A POTENTIAL CLASH WITH CANELO ALVAREZ IS A PROVEN FORMULA THAT SELLS ITSELF IN A WORLD OF SAFETY-FIRST STARS By Keith Idec TRUE GRIT
F reddie Roach had an epiphany one night late in the summer of 2008. Until then, Manny Pacquiao’s protective trainer was adamantly against the Filipino superstar moving up two weight classes to oppose Oscar De La Hoya, a former middleweight and junior middleweight champion Roach had trained, at 147 pounds. Roach recognized that Pacquiao possessed superior speed and athleticism, but the powerful southpaw had fought only once at the lightweight limit of 135 pounds prior to promoter Bob Arum offering him a huge payday to square off against one of the sport’s transcendent icons. A reminiscent narrative is now playing out a bit further up the scale as Terence Crawford, who has defeated all comers in his rise from 135 to 154 pounds, prepares to challenge 168-pound champion and Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez. The similarities are worth studying. Pacquiao, who stands four-plus inches shorter than De La Hoya, stopped David Diaz in the ninth round of his lightweight debut in June 2008. Before he defeated Diaz, however, Pacquiao competed exclusively at the junior lightweight limit of 130 pounds for more than three years.
Pacquiao, a training fanatic, easily adjusted to the extra five pounds when he encountered Diaz, a fellow southpaw who struggled with the future eight- division champion’s power and speed. Jumping up two more weight classes to face De La Hoya was “another animal altogether,” according to Roach. “This was a whole new ballgame,” Roach told The Ring, “because Manny was moving up another two divisions against not just a naturally bigger man but one of the top pound-for- pound fighters of his era. To make that adjustment from lightweight to welterweight without a tune-up fight, Manny had to adjust his meals. He was put on a custom 7,000-calorie diet to gain the proper amount of weight and to make sure he wasn’t gaining unnecessary weight. “Our biggest concern was maintaining the weight he was gaining, which was a challenge because Manny’s workouts in the gym would last three to four hours with no breaks. And that was in addition to the morning roadwork and drills. Without increasing the amount of food Manny was now eating, in consultation with a strength and nutritional coach, Manny could have easily been a lightweight when he fought Oscar. As it was, Manny was only 142 when he fought Oscar.” Pacquiao, then 29, wasn’t the only one who came in significantly under the contracted welterweight limit for their HBO Pay-Per-View showdown at MGM Grand Garden Arena in December 2008. An overzealous De La
Hoya, hell-bent on proving he could comfortably get down to that weight again, oddly stepped on the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s scale at 145 pounds, his lowest weight in nearly 12 years. The 35-year-old De La Hoya was widely touted as too big and too strong for Pacquiao, who weighed 106 pounds for his pro debut almost 14 years earlier. But “PacMan” proved throughout the stunningly one-sided bout that an apparently overtrained De La Hoya was entirely too slow and stationary to deal with a uniquely dynamic fighter like him. Pacquiao led by huge margins on the scorecards of judges Adelaide Byrd (80-71), Stanley Christodoulou (79-72) and Dave Moretti (80-71) when De La Hoya declined to leave his corner for the ninth round. “I don’t believe the weight was a factor for Oscar,” Roach said. “No matter how much Oscar weighed, Manny was not going to be denied. I had the better game plan and the better fighter. No one could have survived Manny on that night.” Arum, Pacquiao’s longtime promoter and De La Hoya’s former promoter by the time they fought, was one of the few industry insiders who wasn’t the least bit surprised that Pacquiao demolished De La Hoya. “I assumed that Manny would be able to handle Oscar the way he did,” Arum told The Ring. “I thought he even handled him better than I imagined he would. But I was always confident in
Can Terence Crawford pull off the upset against the much-heavier Canelo Alvarez, just as Manny Pacquiao shocked Oscar De La Hoya in 2008?
54
55
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online