New class of lightweight division

By Jeff Haney

Monday, June 30, 2008 | 2 a.m.

From the moment he decided to leave behind boxing’s super featherweight division to take on the sport’s best lightweights, Manny Pacquiao encountered myriad variations on the same question.

Would he retain his signature combination of speed and power in the heavier weight class, or would something become lost in the translation?

After all, this is a guy who began his professional career at 106 pounds before progressing through the ranks.

Pacquiao, considered by many the world’s top all-around fighter, left no doubt Saturday night. He put on perhaps the most sensational performance of his career to win the WBC lightweight championship in a ninth-round stoppage of David Diaz at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

Using devastating combinations, attacking with both hands and outclassing his opponent in hand and foot speed, Pacquiao showed he was a fighter in full, even at 135 pounds.

By the time the technical knockout came at 2:24 of Round 9, Diaz was badly cut on his nose, on his right eye and under his left eye.

“I feel a lot stronger at 135 and more comfortable at that weight,” Pacquiao (47-3-2, 35 knockouts) said. “He’s strong, he can punch, but he was cut. I said (to referee Vic Drakulich), ‘Can you stop the fight?’ But he said, ‘Go ahead.’ ”

Pacquiao, who became the first Asian-born boxer to win world titles in four weight divisions, not only calls the shots at lightweight, but he set up the possibility of a megafight against Ricky Hatton at 140 pounds.

“It was the best Manny Pacquiao yet,” trainer Freddie Roach said. “I think at 135 he looked great. At 135 Manny didn’t starve himself. He looked strong. He’s growing, and 135 is a more natural weight for him.”

Pacquiao won the first eight rounds on all three judges’ scorecards, and even won the second by 10-8 on two cards without a knockdown — an indication of a totally one-sided pairing.

“If you guys could get the license plate number of that truck, I would really appreciate it,” Diaz (34-2-1, 17 KOs) said. “The (guy) is fast. He can hit pretty good, but his speed is the thing that got me. He’s a good fighter and a clean fighter.”

Promoter Bob Arum compared Pacquiao’s decision to step up in weight class to welterweight champion Miguel Cotto’s move from junior welterweight a year ago.

“Miguel Cotto at 140, people were saying he had no chin, he wasn’t strong and he was wearing out,” Arum said. “And he was, because he was making a low weight. Once he went to 147, he was a different fighter entirely.

“Some of these young men who struggle so hard to make weight are just kidding themselves. They’re better off going up a class and not trying to make a weight that depletes them.”

Fields stopped

Las Vegas heavyweight Tye Fields’ plan to establish himself as a world title contender sustained a serious hit when he was knocked out by Monte Barrett 57 seconds into the first round of a scheduled 10-rounder on the undercard.

Fields (40-2, 36 KOs), under the guidance of Arum’s Top Rank Inc., had hoped to secure a few more victories and then challenge one of the division’s title-holders. Instead Barrett, 37, gave his career a much-needed boost with the emphatic KO.

“I said if Tye Fields tried to bully me, it was going to be an early night, and it was,” Barrett (34-6, 20 KOs) said. “Tye Fields is a good guy, (but) he’s just an average fighter. I just want you to know I’m for real. I’m hungry.

“I’m an old man but I’m a wise man, and I’ve gotten much wiser. I’m in a better space because I’ve been doing a lot of therapy. It’s been working for me.”

Undercard DQ

In a fight with an odd ending that drew comparisons to the first Roy Jones Jr.-Montell Griffin bout and the two Terry Norris-Luis Santana fights, Francisco Lorenzo won the interim WBC super featherweight title while flat on his back in the ring.

Lorenzo (33-4, 14 KOs) was ruled the winner by disqualification against Humberto Soto (43-7-2, 27 KOs) after Soto hit Lorenzo when he was down. Soto, who had been thumping Lorenzo for the better part of four rounds, landed a punch on Lorenzo’s head after Lorenzo took a knee in the corner.

Officials with the WBC ruled they would not recognize Lorenzo as the title-holder and would ask for a rematch.

Soto, a 9-1 betting favorite, did give credit to Lorenzo ... for the acting skills he displayed in his performance lying on the canvas after the late hit.

After the disqualification ruling, “Did you see how quick he got up?” Arum said. “There’s something wrong when a guy is going down and he gets hit with a glancing blow and it’s ruled he was hit when he was down and therefore it’s a disqualification.”

In a WBO featherweight title bout, Steven Luevano and Mario Santiago fought to an action-filled 12-round draw.

Luevano (35-1-1, 15 KOs) won 117-111 on one scorecard, Santiago won 115-113 on another and it was 114-114 on the third.

“I won a lot,” said Santiago (19-1-1, 14 KOs), who called for a rematch. “I won (over) the fans and HBO. Steven Luevano is a tough cat, but I showed everyone I have power and I can win.”

Blame game

Arum pointed the finger at a familiar target in explaining why the card drew a crowd of 8,362, a drop-off from the kind of attendance Pacquiao’s fights usually generate. More than 11,000 attended his victory against Juan Manuel Marquez at the Events Center in March.

“There’s one guy you can blame, and that’s George Bush,” Arum said. “With gasoline prices the way they are, people just can’t afford to come in from California.”

Arum employed a similar tactic this month after Kelly Pavlik failed to pull his usual big crowd from his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, to a fight in Atlantic City.

“I mean, 400 bucks to drive from Youngstown,” Arum said. “What the hell is this coming to? I don’t care if it’s Obama or McCain. We want a change and we’re going to get a change. These eight years have been the worst eight years that I can remember in the United States.”

That might well be, but the fact that David Diaz is not a household name in boxing surely also played a role this weekend.