Manny Pacquiao sensationally defeated Oscar De La Hoya in 8 rounds at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas! Everyone knew that Manny had the potential to win on points, but nobody thought it was possible for him to stop the larger Oscar De La Hoya. Initially Manny was using great movement and ring craft to keep his distance from Oscar, and had some good success with straight left hands. As the rounds went on and Oscars eye became more and more swollen, he actually started taking the centre of the ring and pretty much unleashed hard combinations at will. Oscar De La Hoya didn’t have anything in return, and at the end of the 8th round the doctor called the fight off as there was no need for him to take any more punishment – he was defeated.
Freddie Roach was ecstatic with the win, and was vindicated with his earlier statements about De La Hoya. Having worked with him for 8 weeks in preparation for an earlier fight, he said that Oscar couldn’t pull the trigger on his punches anymore and that Manny would stop him in 8 or 9 rounds. Almost a perfect prediction? His plan was always for speed, and it worked perfectly as Oscar did not seem to be able to cope with Manny’s speed or even react to some of his shots.
Oscar De La Hoya was very gracious in defeat, and gives a lot of credit to Manny on winning the fight. However, a lot of questions are being asked over his weight. At the weigh-in he was 2 pounds under the weight limit which was surprising, but what was even more surprising was that he only put on 2 more pounds for the fight. We were all expecting his actual fight weight to be much higher. Ricky Hatton thought that although De La Hoya looked good at the weigh-in, he looked ill at the fight and suspects that something went wrong with his weight management. If anymore comes out about this remains to be seen.
In the meantime however it is a fantastic achievement for Manny Pacquiao, and his legions of followers in the Phillipines will no doubt be celebrating for days after this win. It also opens the door for a showdown with Ricky Hatton for the best Pound for Pound title at 140 lbs. With the 2 fighters having the best supporters in the world and a potentially great clash of styles, I’m pinning my hopes on Hatton vs Pacquiao in 2009!
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Posted in: Boxing News
Tags: manny pacquiao, oscar de la hoya, ricky hatton
Just wanted to drop you a line to say, I enjoy reading your site. I thought about starting a blog myself but don’t have the time.
Oh well maybe one day….