It's been thrown out before and once again revived by Bernard Hopkins recently in an interview with AOL Fanhouse. Initially, Pacquiao was criticized for his supposed avoidance of 'black fighters.'
Remember when Nate Campbell's trainer and former middleweight champion John David Jackson was interviewed by Matteo Alderson of boxingscene.com last year. Below is what he said
“Pacquiao never fights black fighters. Name one good black fighter he’s fought in the last five years. He’s avoided them like the plague.”
Soon thereafter many others chimed on the issue such as Nate Campbell. However when confronted by the fact that Pacquiao fought Ledwaba, they quickly modified their criticisms to Pacquiao avoiding African American fighters.
Now Hopkins is reviving the issue but this time rewording it in a different way such as not to directly accuse Pacquiao of avoiding African American fighters, while ensuring that the fans are made known of the fact that he has not fought any. But no matter how he re-worded it, many boxing fans are smart enough to know the real message that he was trying to send.
So is Pacquiao avoiding African American fighters?
The answer is no, but his fans should not react because it’s actually a compliment. It only shows how critics of Pacquiao are rapidly running out of excuses to discredit his accomplishments and are now relegated to nitpicking his career with flawed criticisms while hoping that most boxing fans will take it at face value without actually looking at the facts. Not only that, it only validates the belief of a number of Filipino boxing fans, that some people just cannot accept the fact that a Filipino is the face of a sport that is usually dominated by Latinos and Americans.
First off, during Pacquiao’s reign at the lower weights, there were not an abundance of elite African American fighters in his divisions. When he first won the flyweight title in 1998, the top ten fighters in his division were comprised of Latino and Asian fighters: Hugo Soto, Mauricio Pastrana, Chatchai Gym, Jose Bonilla, Saen Sor Ploenchit, Alejandro Felix Montiel, Ruben Leon, David Gerault, and Chockvivat Chokchai.
There was Mark ‘Too Sharp’ Johnson in the super flyweight division and Tim Austin was in the bantamweight division, but during that time, Filipino fighters were not on the radar of the top American fighters, and had a difficult time obtaining fights abroad because it was assumed that there was no market for them as fighters.
Gerry Penalosa was one of the better Filipino fighters during those times with a better resume and no doubt a bigger name than Pacquiao at the time and even he wasn’t able to consistently obtain a fight in the United States until Pacquiao ascended as one of the superstars in the sport. Penalosa during his prime expressed interest in fighting the best fighters around his weight class such as Johnson, Tapia and none of them ever reciprocated the same interest.
Were they scared? No, it was more based on economic reasons and common sense than anything else. Why bring an unknown fighter from Asia and spend extra money to bring him here when they can just get a local fighter that might be less talented but more known and posses significantly less risks.
Even Nonito Donaire Jr., once said in an interview with Eastsideboxing.com, “Early in my career I could not get a fight, I was the one that was chosen on two days notice. I never had the choice to make things happen. When I tried to sign with managers in the past I was told that Filipinos were not marketable. I was told that Filipino fighters couldn’t break an egg, but Manny has helped change all of that and we are thankful for everything he has done for the Filipino boxing world.”
If Penalosa couldn’t get a fight with some of the top fighters in his prime, then it’s almost illogical to think that Pacquiao could have. If they ever did offer a fight with Pacquiao, there is almost no doubt that the latter would have accepted it because it would have provided him the chance to achieve his goal of being able to display his skills to a wider audience while proving he was one of the best fighters in the world. It’s this desire of his that made the then unknown Pacquiao accept a fight with a ‘slick’ African fighter in Ledwaba on only two weeks notice.
Then soon after Pacquiao won the the super flyweight title, Johnson suffered back to back losses to Rafael Marquez. When he seemed to have revived his career with four consecutive wins including an upset of Fernando Montiel, Pacquiao was already making a name for himself at the super bantamweight division by defeating Barrera and Marquez, two of the top fighters at the time.
If there was a time that Pacquiao could have fought Johnson, it was after the first Marquez fight, but Johnson suffered a TKO loss against Ivan Hernandez later that year. After the loss Johnson didn't fight until 2006 and was knocked out by Johnny Gonzalez, so a fight with him didn't make sense anymore.
At the same time, Derrick Gainer, another prominent African American fighter around the same weight class was for the most part inactive and no longer in his prime. Tim Austin was still fighting but on the downside of his career and legal troubles kept him from getting his career back on the right track.
The other times Pacquiao could have fought an African American fighter was when Zahir Raheem beat Erik Morales and when Nate Campbell held multiple lightweight belts.
But Raheem was a virtual unknown who suffered from inconsistencies as proven by the fact that he lost his next fight against Acelino Freitas after defeating Morales. Campbell on the other hand was passed over because Pacquiao chose to go for an even harder challenge by facing Oscar De La Hoya. Remember many were picking Oscar to defeat Pacquiao by a wide margin.
Then when Campbell's name was mentioned as a possible opponent for Pacquiao after the latter's victory against Oscar, many criticized it because Campbell was thought to be past his prime.
Pacquiao never avoided African American fighters during his reign at the lower weight classes. The truth is he's never fought an African American fighter because the top fighters in his division for most of his career were Asians or Latinos or there were much tougher challenges available. I mean how many fans and boxing analysts were pleading for him to face an African American fighter during his stint at the lower weight classes? None, because Pacquiao was already facing the best fighters he could, which included Mexican legends such as Morales, Barrera and Marquez.
Pacquiao since he came to the scene has consistently proven that he is not afraid to face the best possible opponents. In fact, since 2001 it can be argued that no other fighter has fought the same caliber of opponents that Pacquiao has in the same time span so accusing him of ducking certain opponents is ridiculous.
Besides, just because he has not fought any African Americans does not mean that Pacquiao has not fought a slick boxer. Maybe Hopkins forgot that his most recent loss was against a slick boxer by the name of Joe Calzaghe.
Instead, maybe Hopkins should ask why the best African American boxer of this generation has yet to step up and agree to fight Pacquiao.
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