My patron in the PACLAND site named GEM PAC gave a nice thread which contains a clause that his friend Vir says to wit:  “Belts don’t make champions.”

Nice line and fitly said.  Belts, really, don’t necessarily mean that the holder is the real champ.  I think the boxing world has gone to a paradigm shift in which the championship belts of alphabet organizations have become secondary.  An intriguing example to attest to this is the case of the Philippines’ Manny Pacquiao.

Pacquiao is not currently a holder of any first rate championship belt.  Prior to his becoming a top four pound-for-pounder, he was a champion holding the WBC 126-lb. belt.  But in a non-title fight with then elite pound-for-pound member Marco Antonio Barrera, he became a sensational hit when he demolished Barrera not through a boring 12-round decision but via an unbelievable knockout victory.  Nobody ever thought Barrera could be knocked out but Pacquiao showed it to the whole world.

Not only that.  His next fight, a unification bout with then IBF champ Juan Manuel Marquez, stamped another mark to his excellence in boxing when he floored Marquez three times in round 1.  That match ended in a draw which many experts thought was a robbery with Pacquiao the victim.  After that fight, Marquez slowly dropped to oblivion while Pacquiao was to build his tower higher.

His next major skirmish was with the legendary Erik “El Terrible” Morales, a future hall-of-famer.  The Pacman lost but not without Morales having a tough time.  They met again and Pacquiao dealt Morales the worst loss of his sterling career, a 10th round referee-stopped contest because Morales was probably near to death.

Three highly rated opponents.  Pacquiao floored them all.  None of them ever did what he did to them.  And yet Pacquiao has no championship belt to boast.  Does the belt matter?  No.  His victories over his rivals speak for themselves.

The name Manny Pacquiao is a Championship Belt in itself.  No wonder, a former victim, Marco Antonio Barrera who is a holder of a belt right now, is the one after the name MANNY PACQUIAO as if that name is more precious than the belt.  The champion is acting like he’s not the champion, and the challenger regarded as the real champion.

Really, I agree with GEM PAC and his friend VIR.  BELTS DON’T MAKE CHAMPIONS.