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Who would've thought that De La Hoya, an accomplished former welterweight champion who has campaigned as high as middleweight (160 pounds), would be fighting an opponent who began his career at 106?
Although immensely talented, Pacquiao is making an unprecedented leap in weight, bypassing the 140-pound division to challenge the sport's biggest pay-per-view attraction.
"You don't put somebody in a fight that you believe he can't win just for money," said Bob Arum, head of Top Rank Inc., Pacquiao's promoter, when asked in a conference call this week about his fighter's chances. "You don't do that."
There's plenty of buzz in the Philippines about Pacquiao's chances. Politicians are concerned, and, according to Arum, the legislature won't have a quorum because representatives are traveling to Las Vegas' MGM Grand Arena for Saturday's welterweight bout (HBO Pay-Per-View, 9 p.m. ET, $54.95).
"It comes with a lot of tremendous responsibilities, because an entire nation of 90 million people is focusing on his every move. Anything that happens to him is followed," said Arum, who began his career in the sport in 1966 by promoting a Muhammad Ali heavyweight title match.
While Pacquiao (47-3-2, 35 KOs) is regarded as the sport's top fighter pound-for-pound, he has never fought above 135. In fact he has only had one bout at lightweight, and that was a ninth-round TKO of David Diaz in June.
Diaz is neither as accomplished nor as skilled as De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs), who began his career in 1992 as a lightweight.
Although Pacquiao is one of the harder punchers in the smaller weight classes, De La Hoya has withstood the pounding from a who's who of heavy hitters in the higher weights, such as Ike Quartey, Felix Trinidad, Shane Mosley and Fernando Vargas.
The only one from the lot to score a knockdown of De La Hoya was Quartey, but The Golden Boy dropped him twice and went on to win a decision.
Pacquiao, who had a reputation for a shaky chin early in his career, has been KO'd twice, in 1996 and '99 as a flyweight.
De La Hoya has been KO'd once, but that occurred at middleweight, 13 pounds above his best fighting weight and against an all-time great in Bernard Hopkins via body shot.
Like Pacquiao, De La Hoya faced questions early in his career about his chin and toughness.
At lightweight, he was knocked down twice by journeymen. As he rose in class, however, he showed a world-class chin. He doesn't expect Pacquiao to have that problem, either.
"There's a lot of fighters who move up in weight class. If they don't have the chin, or heart, they get knocked out," De La Hoya said. "The fact that he can take the hard punch and has the will to win … he's going to come at me. It's not going to be easy."
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