Manny Pacquiao: Why He Can't Lose to Dinamita on Saturday

Manny Pacquiao has to beat Juan Manuel Marquez when the two square off on Saturday at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. He has to. 

Or, to put it another way, the Philippine megastar, the biggest icon in all of boxing at this point, can't lose to Marquez when he puts the gloves on in Vegas this weekend. 

Notice, I didn't say he won't lose to Marquez. The Mexican has come the closest to knocking off Pacman during his recent run of success, splitting a controversial decision back in 2008 with the eight-division champ. I said that Pacman cannot fall to Marquez. 

Why? Simple: the sport of boxing can't handle it. 

Say what you will about the Klitschko bots in the heavyweight division (and with as uninteresting as the division has been in recent years, Witali and Wladimir could well be robots for all we know), or Floyd "Mouth" Mayweather's undefeated record, but the fact remains that Pacman is the biggest star boxing has, in both the sports world and the mainstream universe. 

He's on an incredible run of success that has catapulted him to megastardom, to heights few thought a boxer could reach in this day and age. 

But all of that changes if that winning streak, that streak of outright dominance, of machine-like destruction of opponents, comes to a screeching and sudden halt on Saturday. If Marquez takes down the champ, if he beats the man seen as unbeatable at the moment, it does more than just end Pacman's dominance.

It ends the hopes of millions of fans that maybe, just maybe, the stars will align, Floyd Mayweather will remember where he put his courage, and the fight we've all dreamt of will actually happen. 

Not only does that kill the once-in-a-lifetime fight, it also kills a good portion of the luster Pacman has built up over the last six years. Sure, he'll still be a star, but it won't be the same. How can the pound-for-pound greatest fighter in the world have a rubber-match loss to Juan Manuel Marquez? He can't. 

Suddenly, the 32-year-old pugilist goes from being Pacman, the pop-sining, politician who can do no wrong in the eyes of the general public, to being Manny Pacquiao, the supremely talented but slightly less-than-fantastic fighter who couldn't quite get to the top of the mountain. 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that a loss would kill the sport of boxing (the promotion business is doing that perfectly well on that front all by itself), but its biggest icon losing a fight to someone other than Floyd Mayweather would definitely not help its cause with the mainstream public. 

Fortunately for the boxing world, that is a reality that it likely won't have to face at this particular juncture. Pacman is on the kind of roll that few boxers have ever experienced. His combination of skill and power has overwhelmed and flummoxed each of his last several opponents, and he's seemed to get stronger with each passing round. Odds are good, he'll come out of this fight with Marquez with yet another impressive win under his belt. 

In other words, boxing fans can rest easy. Their pipe dream fight will remain on the table, Pacman's celebrity status will continue to grow and boxing will continue to exist in the mainstream consciousness. 

So, no pressure, right, Manny?