Oscar Pilots His Clean Getaway against Best
by BetUS Staff
BetUS Sportsbook bettors who enjoy boxing will find this one a curiosity. The mega-fight to end the year has been announced, and it would seem too many to be an unlikely one. Oscar De La Hoya, who is boxing undisputed pound-for-pound king of the box office, will take on Manny Pacquiao, arguably boxing best pound-for-pound pugilist, in a 12-round that is scheduled for the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas on Saturday, December 6.
Here are the BetUS boxing betting odds, as they appear at the moment:
December 6 -- Las Vegas
Welterweights
OSCAR DE LA HOYA -275
MANNY PACQUIAO +190
De La Hoya, the -275 favorite at BetUS, is 39-5 with 30 knockouts. Pacquiao, the +190 underdog at BetUS, is 47-3-2 with 35 KO's. In this era of watered-down titles, De La Hoya has won championships in six weight classes, while Pacquiao is a five-division "champion."
This is supposedly the last fight in De La Hoya's career, and since Floyd Mayweather has announced his retirement, the decision was made to substitute the guy who has replaced Mayweather on most of the mythical "pound-for-pound" lists, rather than to turn to Antonio Margarito, who had beaten Miguel Angel Cotto in what many felt was more or less an "elimination" for this opportunity. De La Hoya's explanation was that he did not want to fight another Mexican, but would have preferred the Puerto Rican. I don't know about the intellectual honesty in that. Margarito certainly had the ability to transform De La Hoya's farewell party into a much more somber event.
There's a lot more money in this fight than one with Margarito as well. That would have been the more sincere answer. Pacquiao has not just developed a nice following here in the U.S., he's a big figure in Asia as well, and has an awful lot of steam on the internet.
Pacquiao comes to this fight having cleaned things up to an extent in the smaller weight classes, beating people like Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez, Erik Morales and David Diaz over the last couple of years. Just a couple of months ago, he won the WBC lightweight title by stopping Diaz in nine rounds.
This fight will take place at the welterweight limit of 147 pounds. Any way you look at it, this is a quantum leap for Pacquiao. He was stretching it as it was, fighting at 135 pounds for the first time against Diaz after being at 130 for his previous eight fights. For someone who began his career at 106 pounds, Pacquiao has really climbed the ladder. In recent years, he's done that in a hurry. As recently as the summer of 2003, he was 120 pounds.
Roberto Duran began his career at 119 pounds, and won titles at lightweight, welterweight, junior middleweight and middleweight, and fought for titles at super middleweight (168 pounds). Of course, all of this was over a span of more than 20 years.
De La Hoya has been as high as 160 pounds and has not fought at 147 since 2001. He has been coming back down toward the welterweight division, though; for his tuneup bout against Steve Forbes in May, he weighed 150 pounds. De La Hoya would have at least a four-inch height advantage in this one.
Most of my colleagues in boxing look upon this fight with askance. They regard Pacquiao literally as a midget when compared to De La Hoya, who is probably still fresh at 35 since he fights so seldom. One promoter remarked that he simply didn't think the fight was even on the level.
Before writing Pacquiao off entirely, he does have something of a whirlwind style, and comes from all angles, which could keep De La Hoya off-balance. Pacquiao said at a press conference: “My speed is going to be a big factor in this fight. He has the advantage in height, but I believe that I am stronger than him.” Well, he's half-right. He will unquestionably have a certain speed edge in this one. But when Morales had something left, he handled Pacquiao in the midst of a jump in weight, and did it without a huge problem.
Trainer Freddie Roach, who has worked with De La Hoya and now works with Pacquiao, believes Pacquiao can beat Oscar continually to the punch, in fact enough to score a stoppage.
But Oscar may only have to land one punch or two to change the whole tide.
We've got lots of time in between. We'll come back and revisit this fight as it approaches, at which time I'll give you my play.
(Charles Jay of www.ebookies.com is a former manager, matchmaker and color commentator in professional boxing. He currently pulls no punches in the BetUS Locker Room)
