IF THREAD! IF pac beats several fighters..

[andrew14]

IF pac beat PBF, JMM(3rd), Mosley and Cotto.

does he have a compelling status with henry armstrong???

do you consider him equal to armstrong if that happens???

or he must fight some more good names.

forget about hall of fame or atg.

[MANGLER]

Obviously, but that's an impossibly big if.

[nujabes77]

if he gets a title at 147, that would surpass armstrongs legacy

[MR. V]

if he, PAC, were to beat all those fiters in any shape, theres no question in my opinion he would be the best fiter of ALL time. hands down, no question. i just dont see it happening though.

[aether]

hard to say... cause if pac beats those guys:

jmm= old
mosley= old
floyd= ring rust
cotto= already lost to margarito/ weight drained

[tjadl6386]

He'd definitely cement his status as one of the greatest of all time but that is would mean he'd have to fight a couple more years whichs looks unlikely.

[Dave Rado]

if he gets a title at 147, that would surpass armstrongs legacy

Depends how you look at it. Armstrong held three lineal titles simultaneously, all of which he won within a year. Pacquiao has won two lineal titles in the last year, at 130lb and 140lb (his Lightweight alphabet belt is not comparable with Armstrong's lineal belts). So if even if he won the lineal Welterweight crown (and he'd have to beat both Cotto and Mosley in order to achieve that, because the lineal Welterweight title is currently vacant), it would have taken him a lot more than a year to do it.

Another, admittedly less important, difference, is that there were no Super or Junior titles in Armstrong's day, and he held lineal titles at 126, 135 and 147 simultaneously, a bigger weight gap than Pac's jump from 130 to 147. Pac did also hold a lineal title at 126, but if you take that into account, the timescale grows even greater.

A more important difference is that Armstrong defended his most prestigious title (Welterweight) many times, against all comers: he didn't just win it and then retire. Thus in Armstrong's case, he fought and beat many rising stars as they came up and challenged him. So the criticism that has been levelled at Mayweather, for instance, that he beat a relatively weak lineal champion and then didn't defend it when other young fighters like Cotto came along, couldn't be levelled against Armstrong. Armstrong was genuinely at ATG Welterweight, whereas if Pacquiao won the Welterweight crown and immediately retired, he'd be an ATG fighter, but not an ATG Welterweight.

One more difference, which IMO is fairly important: food and fitness science wasn't what it is now, in Armstrong's day; people weren't able to gain weight without losing speed and power by using clever nutritional and training regimes, and with the help of experts, the way they are today; and probably because of that, Armstrong actually weighed in as a Lightweight for most of his Welterweight fights. To me, weighing 135lb and beating a 147lb champion is more impressive than using modern science to gain poundage so as to be able to fight at 147lb while keeping most of your power and speed intact. It's still incredible that Pac has been able to move up so much in weight without losing power or speed - even with the help of modern science, no other modern boxer has moved up the divisions as impressively as Pac has. Nevertheless, in this respect, I still think Armstrong's achievement is more impressive.

So in answer to your original question, would Pac stand comparison with Armstrong if he won those four fights and then retired? Absolutely. Would he deserve to rank equally with (or higher than) Armstrong in the ATG lists in those circumstances? IMO, no.

[Pullcounter]

IF pac beat PBF, JMM(3rd), Mosley and Cotto.

does he have a compelling status with henry armstrong???

do you consider him equal to armstrong if that happens???

or he must fight some more good names.

forget about hall of fame or atg.

if he beat all those dudes in spectacular fashion, I'd say yes.

If pac beats some and barely sc****s by others, I'd say maybe.

if pac barely beats all of them, I'd say no.

[andrew14]

Depends how you look at it. Armstrong held three lineal titles simultaneously, all of which he won within a year. Pacquiao has won two lineal titles in the last year, at 130lb and 140lb (his Lightweight alphabet belt is not comparable with Armstrong's lineal belts). So if even if he won the lineal Welterweight crown (and he'd have to beat both Cotto and Mosley in order to achieve that, because the lineal Welterweight title is currently vacant), it would have taken him a lot more than a year to do it.

Another, admittedly less important, difference, is that there were no Super or Junior titles in Armstrong's day, and he held lineal titles at 126, 135 and 147 simultaneously, a bigger weight gap than Pac's jump from 130 to 147. Pac did also hold a lineal title at 126, but if you take that into account, the timescale grows even greater.

A more important difference is that Armstrong defended his most prestigious title (Welterweight) many times, against all comers: he didn't just win it and then retire. Thus in Armstrong's case, he fought and beat many rising stars as they came up and challenged him. So the criticism that has been levelled at Mayweather, for instance, that he beat a relatively weak lineal champion and then didn't defend it when other young fighters like Cotto came along, couldn't be levelled against Armstrong. Armstrong was genuinely at ATG Welterweight, whereas if Pacquiao won the Welterweight crown and immediately retired, he'd be an ATG fighter, but not an ATG Welterweight.

One more difference, which IMO is fairly important: food and fitness science wasn't what it is now, in Armstrong's day; people weren't able to gain weight without losing speed and power by using clever nutritional and training regimes, and with the help of experts, the way they are today; and probably because of that, Armstrong actually weighed in as a Lightweight for most of his Welterweight fights. To me, weighing 135lb and beating a 147lb champion is more impressive than using modern science to gain poundage so as to be able to fight at 147lb while keeping most of your power and speed intact. It's still incredible that Pac has been able to move up so much in weight without losing power or speed - even with the help of modern science, no other modern boxer has moved up the divisions as impressively as Pac has. Nevertheless, in this respect, I still think Armstrong's achievement is more impressive.

So in answer to your original question, would Pac stand comparison with Armstrong if he won those four fights and then retired? Absolutely. Would he deserve to rank equally with (or higher than) Armstrong in the ATG lists in those circumstances? IMO, no.

pac uses science as well his opponents.

armstrong didnt science before as well as his opponents.

maybe thats the difference.

another is

pac need to learn more every fight.

armstrong is gifted.

pac fights 2 or 3 fights a year.

armstrong fought 8 or more a year.

you can look at their resume armstrong fought more than pac.

why the hell fighters of today fought lesser than yesterday?

early fighters fought sometimes 3 to 4 times on the same opponents.

and fought more are those opponenst QUALIFY?

pac do that too today.

we all know that people of yesterday are to few than today.

are there to many standard procedure to take a fight today than yesterday?

like so many oraganization(wbc, wba, wbo, ibf, etc)

what is the difference between fighters of today and yesterday?

armsrtong fought BIGGER than him. i dont how to qualify his opponents.

pac fought BIGGER and QUALITY opponenst than him for me.

or boxing of yesterday is loose and today is very tight.

or is the world is changing and time thats why boxing change too.

[NakiFan]

If he beat all of them hed pretty much be the goat