Warning: Those who suffer from high blood pressure, have a heart condition, sweat profusely after a 30 second walk from the hotel to the press bus in the Las Vegas summer or are currently eating a cream filled donut while washing it down with a Diet Cola, you should avoid reading this article.

I have been saying since this fight promotion began that Manny Pacquiao was going to beat Oscar De La Hoya and I have closed most of my “Dream Fight” articles reminding everyone that Manny would defeat Oscar.  Conventional wisdom amongst the experts has been that Oscar is just too big and this fight is a joke. After carefully looking at what the experts have to say I can say that just a day before the fight that my opinion is Manny Pacquiao will defeat Oscar De La Hoya. Conventional wisdom aside, let me give you my reasons why I believe this fight will go to Pacman. And don’t worry; I won’t be doing a follow up report about why Oscar is going to win a day later. I have seen some spineless writers attempting to straddle the fence and give positives for both guys….you won’t be reading that here.

What you will be reading here is a little bit of fact, a little bit of theory and a little bit of fun.

First let me address my articles title:

A Steep Mountain To Come Down From

At it’s altitude of nearly 7,000 feet The Big Bear mountain in Southern California has become a hot spot for fighters to set up training camp and Oscar De La Hoya pretty much paved the way as he has made the mountain top retreat one of his mainstays for training, especially for the big fights. The thinking has always been that training in the thin air can do nothing but help the fighters and when they get to sea level breathing during the fight and the subsequent stamina will be a breeze.  Forgive me if I am wrong, but doesn’t Oscar continually get gassed down the stretch. Doesn’t it seem that time and time again Oscar’s performances end with him sucking wind? What the heck happened to all that high altitude work he put in?

Doing a little impromptu research I got in touch with Physiologist Will G. Hopkins who specializes in Sport and Recreation and has dedicated a good portion of his career to Sea Level vs. High Altitude training. Dr. Hopkins sent over his meta-analysis thesis that is coming out in Sports Medicine magazine soon. It’s a wonderful piece that is quite lengthy but it really breaks down everything you would want to know about the subject. I would suggest that someone from Team De La Hoya picks it up and reads it over and over again.

I asked the good Doctor to break down the article into simple English for me and the first words out of his mouth were, “I doubt a boxer would get any benefit from altitude training.”

Hey there’s a huge red flag for all you De La Hoya honks, the Doc says no benefit for boxers training in Big Bear!   

Dr. Hopkins next revelation was, “You can lose fitness at altitude, too, because you can't train (in the mountains) as hard as (you can train) at sea level.

Translation, just because you are breathing hard up in Big Bear doesn’t mean you are working hard. It means there is NO OXYGEN up there, of course you are breathing hard. If you were at sea level, training would be easier to breath and you could get much more work in. Ipso Facto…you get in better shape.

Lastly I asked Dr. Hopkins about returning to sea level and the timing for the day of competition. As we know most fighters including De La Hoya come down around a week or less before fight night. Bad move and it’s likely to do more harm than good coming down that late. According to the Doctor, “As for the best time to come down, it's probably 2 weeks before the competition.”

That pretty much explains Oscar running out of gas down the stretch to me. And as we know Oscar spent a lot of time in Big Bear for this fight and we are pretty sure he came down way too late to allow the high altitude training to take full effect, if it does at all. Chances are altitude training does boxers no good at all and can be worse than training at sea level. Those aren’t my words, those are the Doctors.

Let’s call that FACT!

Next, The Homicide’Hank Factor

I don’t know why everyone is so quick to point out Manny started out fighting many many pounds less than the weight he will be fighting Oscar at on Saturday. If I am not mistaken a fighter by the name of Henry Armstrong started off fighting as a little guy but went on to win numerous titles all the way up to Welterweight, in fact he held 3 titles at one time.

Whoa…breath deep fat boy, and put the donut down before you choke. I told you at the beginning this was gonna raise your blood pressure.

I am not saying Manny Pacquiao is equal to Armstrong, I know the feat he pulled off has never been equaled. What I am saying is it is not unprecedented for a fighter to start out his career as a little guy and then go one to hold titles all the way up to the 147 pound mark. Did you know Armstrong even took a shot at the middleweight title and came out of the fight with a draw, and many thought he won?  My point is a smaller guy can beat a bigger guy quite handily, and as I have been saying, it’s going to happen again on Saturday night.

Let’s call that my theory.

Now for the fun.

And lastly, The Statue

As many of us know the first thing Oscar did when he came down from his mountain top retreat was to have a ceremony in front of the Los Angles Staple Center where he was honored with a statue of himself that will go alongside those of Magic Johnson and Wayne Gretzky. Not sure what Magic and Gretz winning percentages are at Staples, but I do know Oscar’s is 0%.

Never mind the fact that while Oscar was wearing the Armani Suit on Monday and getting his award in front of a handful of fans Freddie Roach had Manny locked in Wild Card Gym putting in one more good day of hard work before heading to Vegas.

I digress.

As I was relating the statue ceremony to one of my associates he uttered the words, “Rocky 3”

At first I didn’t know what he was talking about so I asked him to explain. He reminded me that in Rocky 3, Balboa was getting honored in his hometown of Philadelphia with a huge statue of himself and a few scenes later the great Clubber Lang (aka Mr. T.) was pounding Rocky’s head into the canvas and he lifted the title from everyone’s favorite son.

In the scenes just before the big fight the fighters are shown going through their respective training camps. Rocky’s Las Vegas-style training camp is filled with distractions. Clubber's training regiment of working out in a rundown building with whatever he has clearly shows that he is taking his preparation for the bout far more seriously and is determined to win.

Anyone who has viewed scenes from the HBO 24/7 surrounding the upcoming Oscar vs. Manny bout has seen Oscar in a camp full of high profile trainers, former boxers holding the mitts for The Golden Boy and comedian George Lopez on hand for laughs.  Meanwhile Manny is on lockdown in the humble yet effective Wildcard Gym and it’s nothing but serious business under Freddie Roaches roof.

And as we know, in Rocky 3 the focused challenger defeats the too busy to put in the real work Champion.

I pity the fool who doesn’t see the same scenario playing out this weekend!