MANILA—For four-time former heavyweight champion Evander “Real Deal” Holyfield, pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao fits his moniker as well.
Holyfield declared Wednesday that Pacquiao is right up there with the very best boxers of any era.
“He (Pacquiao) is an all-time great,” Evander told examiner.com’s Brad Cooney. “And for a smaller guy to come all the way up in weight and beat bigger guys up to 154 lbs, it says a lot.”
Holyfield—best remembered for beating Hall of Famer Mike Tyson twice, the last one infamously featuring that ear-biting incident by Tyson—noted that Pacquiao started his ring career at a mere 106 pounds and moved up to as high as light middleweight.
Along the way, Pacquiao collected an unprecedented eight world crowns and dominated bigger opponents such as Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley.
No wonder Pacquiao is heavily favored to keep his WBO welterweight title against old rival Juan Manuel Marquez on Nov. 12 in Las Vegas at a catch weight of 144 pounds.
Even at an ancient age of 48, Holyfield is still in fighting form, stopping Danish heavyweight Brian Nielsen (46) in the 10th round last month.
The respect seems to be mutual as Pacquiao also idolizes Holyfield.
In an earlier interview with Cooney, Pacquiao bared that he watched many of Holyfield’s fights.
Meanwhile, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said yesterday that details of the global promotional tour leading to Pacquiao-Marquez III will be finalized next week.
“We are going to finalize everything when Manny is here next week,” Arum told the Inquirer. “He is coming with his family and he’s going up to the Nike camp in Oregon.”
Arum said he plans to kick off the promotional tour on the last week of August in Manila with planned stops in Tokyo, London, New York and Los Angeles before winding up in Mexico City.
Pacquiao’s adviser, Michael Koncz, said he’s exploring the possibility of stops in Singapore and Dubai with groups that have shown interest of hosting Pacquiao’s future fights, including a megabuck showdown with unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Arum added that the deposition of Mayweather on the lawsuit filed against him by Pacquiao for a series of statements claiming that the Fighter of the Decade was on performance enhancing drugs has been set for Friday.
Mayweather’s lawyers, however, filed a petition with the judge to postpone the deposition, alleging that he’s training.
Mayweather will gun for Victor Ortiz’s WBC welterweight title on Sept. 17.