Superfight coming?

The Flyers lost to the Penguins, the Sixers lost to the Magic, and the Phillies still have five months until the season ends.

That means, I could write about the Eagles’ first post-draft minicamp, or I could write about the most important event of the weekend, which was Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao’s complete destruction of junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton on Saturday night.

The first “On the Edge” column I ever wrote was about how “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather’s victory over Oscar De La Hoya wasn’t enough to save boxing from the Mixed Martial Arts juggernaut that is the UFC.

However, two years later, boxing is full of life, thanks to PacMan’s willingness to fight the best fighters in the world, no matter what weight class they happen to be ruling at the time. In the process, he has tied Oscar De La Hoya’s all-time record by winning titles in six different weight classes.

Part of the reason for Pacquiao’s rise to stardom is who he was fighting, but a lot of it has to do with how he fights. Many champions choose to coast through their fights and let the judges decide the winner of a boring contest, but Pacquiao always puts on a good show, going for the knockout at all times.

In the past two years alone, PacMan has won six fights in four different weight classes, with four of the victories coming by way of knockout or technical knockout. Among those six fights are victories over a who’s who of the boxing world, including knockouts of Ricky Hatton and David Diaz, both of which won Pacquiao new title belts.

He also stopped De La Hoya and won decisions over Juan Manuel Marquez and Marco Antonio Barrera.And now that he has vanquished all comers, Pacquiao, who is the undisputed pound-for-pound king of boxing, has new challenge before him in the name of Floyd Mayweather, who unretired the day before Pacquiao dismantled Hatton with a second round KO.

This sets up what could possibly be the most important fight since the Thrilla in Manilla, and the most action in a bout since the late Diego Corrales’ stunning 10th round TKO of Jose Luis Castillo (I’ve recommended finding the 10th round of their first fight on YouTube before, and if you haven’t, then you definitely should).

A Pacquiao/Mayweather battle would pit the current pound-for-pound king against the undefeated former pound-for-pound king. It would be a battle between two boxers with blazing fist speed, the ability to end a fight at any moment, and the intelligence to change styles mid-fight to pull off a comeback victory.

It would be a fight between a soft-spoken man who lets his fists do the talking and a man who delivers a beat-down with his words, and then his fists. It would be the fight that officially put boxing back on top in its battle with mixed martial arts.

The only thing standing in the way of the biggest fight in decades is an upcoming battle between Mayweather and Juan Manuel Marquez. Marquez took Pacquiao to the limit in both bouts between the fighters, scoring a draw in 2004, and dropping a split decision last year. Some people, including me, say that Marquez was robbed in at least one of the two fights with Pacquiao, so a win over Mayweather would not be a shock.

While a win by Marquez would set up a thrilling rubber match with Pacquiao, it would not even come close to being the biggest fight of a generation, so let’s hope Mayweather doesn’t show any rust this July, and we get a PacMan/Pretty Boy battle in the fall.

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Like the “On the Edge” Blog? Hear more of my opinions about Philadelphia sports every Friday at 3:30 p.m. on WBCB 1490 AM during the Coffee with Kahuna show, where this week we will discuss the first month of the Phillies’ season, along with the first minicamp of the 2009 Eagles’ season.