BATTLE FOR LIGHTWEIGHT SUPREMACY: DAVID DIAZ MAY NOT BE AS LETHAL COMPARED TO CARLOS ORTIZ
By Alex P. Vidal
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 05 May 2008
Manny Pacquiao will try to rewrite boxing history when he tries to record what the immortal Gabriel ?Flash? Elorde failed to achieve in 1964 and 1966: pole vault from superfeatherweight (130 pounds) to fight and win the world lightweight (135 pounds) crown.
Elorde, a Hall of Famer and the greatest Filipino prizefighter, failed twice in as many ambitions to crush Puerto Rico?s Carlos Ortiz in two bloody world lightweight championship encounters.
Elorde, who reigned as world junior lightweight champion (superfeatherweight) for seven years, was southpaw like Pacquiao but had no match to the orthodox and New York-based Puerto Rican.
Elorde (88-27, 33 KOs) lost both fights on brutal technical knockouts (TKO) in the 14th frame--first on February 15, 1964 in Manila and second on November 28, 1966 in New York.
On June 28 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, southpaw Pacquiao, 29, (46-3, 35 KO) will duke it out with fellow southpaw World Boxing Council (WBC) lightweight champion David Diaz (34-1, 17 KO) for 12 rounds.
In terms of durability and winning streak percentage, experts have compared the indestructible Ortiz to Diaz, a member of the 1996 US Olympic team and many-time Golden Gloves champion.
Diaz, 31, however, pales in comparison to Ortiz (61-7, 30 KO) when it comes to activity and longest number of winning avalanche. In 1955, for instance, the year Ortiz turned professional, he scored 12 straight wins, eight of them by knockouts.
When Ortiz first tore Elorde to shreds, he had incurred four losses but was never stopped.
Diaz will trade mitts with Pacquiao in a fight dubbed ?Lethal Combination? carrying a stigma of a savaged 8th round TKO lost to Kendall Holt on February 4, 2005.
Having tasted the dust like Pacquiao (who was himself flattened twice--first by Rustico Torrecampo and second by Medgoen 3-K Battery), Diaz may not be as lethal as Ortiz who demolished Elorde.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Alex P. Vidal.
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