Examining Perception of Manny Pacquiao's 8 World Titles Before Mayweather Fight

Manny Pacquiao's climb in weight is one of the great accomplishments in boxing history. It really needs no embellishment to be impressive. Yet boxing is part show business, so the line between hype and hyperbole is always a thin one. 

It's become standard practice to refer to Manny Pacquiao as an eight-division world champion. But to see him as such requires a very broad definition of "world champion." 

The weakest world title claim on Pacquiao's resume is the WBC light middleweight belt. To garner that trinket, he defeated Antonio Margarito, who had fought just once in the division, beating unheralded Roberto Garcia. 

The belt was vacant, and both combatants were unranked at light middleweight when Pacquiao and Margarito faced off. Beyond that, the fight was held at a 150-pound catchweight, four pounds before the division's true limit.

So Pacquiao was never any sort of legitimate champion at light middleweight. The WBC may have recognized him as one, but in order to stay sane in a world of alphabet soup madness, it's important to take the words of the sanctioning bodies with a grain of salt when necessary. 

There are no sanctioning bodies at all involved in two of Pacquiao's strongest claims to world-title status. In October 2007, Pacquiao beat Marco Antonio Barrera for the lineal featherweight title, despite none of the four alphabet soup organizations recognizing it as a world-title fight. 

But when Pacquiao beat Barrera, he was beating the man who beat the man. Aside from winning all the available belts and reigning as an undisputed champion, no world-title claim is more legitimate than a lineal one. 

Pacquiao achieved a similar accomplishment when he knocked out Ricky Hatton in October 2009, earning the lineal title at light welterweight. Once again, none of the sanctioning bodies recognized the title claim, but it was the one that mattered more than all others at 140 pounds. 

Pacquiao has staked two other claims to lineal championship status. After beating Barrera for the featherweight title, in his next bout he edged Juan Manuel Marquez by split decision, in March 2008, to win the WBC and lineal title at super featherweight. 

I thought Marquez deserved to win that fight, but it was a very close bout, and two of the three judges disagreed with me. So Pacquiao's claim to world-title status at 130 pounds is entirely solid. 

Pacquiao's first world-title claim was also a lineal one. In 1998, he beat Chatchai Sasakul for the WBC and lineal belt at flyweight. He lost that title on the scales in 1999, prior to getting knocked out by Medgoen Singsurat. 

From flyweight, Pacquiao jumped all the way to super bantamweight and knocked out Lehlohonolo Ledwaba for the IBF title. This was Pacquiao's first fight in the United States and a seminal moment in the development of his legend.

At the time, there was no lineal champion at 122 pounds, so Pacquiao's IBF belt was certainly credible. 

Following his win over Marquez in 2008 for the super featherweight crown, Pacquiao jumped to lightweight and took the WBC belt from David Diaz. But at the time, Pacquiao's old rival, Marquez, had already become the lineal champion at 135 pounds.

Marquez had stopped Joel Casamayor, who had beaten Diego Corrales, who had beaten Jose Luis Castillo. He was very much the man who had beaten the man who had beaten the man at 135 pounds.

Pacquiao's own world-title claim at lightweight is hardly as dubious as his claim at light middleweight. But he did nothing but collect a trinket at lightweight, and it's not a trinket he ever bothered to defend before moving up.

At welterweight, Pacquiao is a two-time WBO champion. He originally captured the belt from Miguel Cotto in 2009. At the time, Shane Mosley was the lineal champion at welterweight, a title he lost to Floyd Mayweather in 2010, who had vacated it when he retired briefly in 2008.

Pacquiao lost the WBO belt to Timothy Bradley in 2012, then won it back last year. When he finally fights Mayweather on May 2, the WBO belt will be on the line against Mayweather's lineal, WBC and WBA claims.

Isaac Brekken/Associated Press

With apologies to Kell Brook and his IBF strap, the Mayweather-Pacquiao clash is as close to a true world-title fight as we generally get in this era. All the belts and claims that mean anything in the welterweight division will be in play.

It's a chance for Pacquiao to add a fifth lineal claim to his already astonishing resume. But beyond that, it will give him a chance to prove he is the top boxing superstar of this generation.  

Follow Briggs Seekins on Twitter at @Briggsfighttalk and check out his blog, Pioneers of Boxing, to read about the early, bare-knuckle era of the sport.