Mayweather-Pacquiao: Will Manny take the fight?

By Boxing News - 11/17/2009 - Comments

pac4552By Dave Lahr: Unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. has made it known that he’s interested in facing newly crowned World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao next. However, the big question is does Pacquiao want to fight Mayweather.

You would think it would be obvious yes, but with Pacquiao you can never be sure what he’s thinking. Pacquiao has suddenly become very popular in the past year and it’s hard to tell what he’ll do next. After a close 12 round split decision win last year over Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao defeated Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and most recently WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto.

The wins were fine, but let’s not get confused about who Pacquiao was facing. Hatton and De La Hoya appeared to have lost a few steps and Cotto didn’t look to be the same fighter after his loss last year against Antonio Margarito. Pacquiao, if he were out to prove something, should have taken on Shane Mosley, who was considered by many to be the best welterweight in the division aside from Mayweather.

Cotto, on the other hand, had been through two fights against Margarito and Joshua Clottey in the past year. Those fights seemed to have taken a lot out of Cotto. In the case of Mayweather, he hasn’t been beaten and he didn’t just come out of a war in his last fight like Cotto did going into his bout with Pacquiao. This is why you have to wonder whether Pacquiao will take the fight with Mayweather.

It would be a fight that Pacquiao might favored in by some boxing experts, but you might be wise to ignore them because none of Pacquiao’s last opponents have been anywhere near Mayweather in fighting style. Cotto, Hatton and De La Hoya were pretty much stationary fighters who stood directly in front of Pacquiao. Cotto did start using movement beginning in the 6th round against Pacquiao.

However, by then, Cotto had already taken an enormous amount of punishment and was moving more just to survive rather than to win the fight. Mayweather would be a whole different story. He would be moving the entire fight and would be countering Pacquiao at every turn. Pacquiao fought very aggressively against Cotto last Saturday night and left himself open again and again throughout the bout as he chased Cotto around the ring.

Pacquiao took a lot of hard shots in the fight, and was hit flush more often than people realize. Mayweather would have a field day against Pacquiao if he fought the same way he did against Cotto. Pacquiao wouldn’t be able to beat Mayweather simply by increasing the pace of the bout and trying to take the fight to him. If anything, that will cause Pacquiao to be stripped apart by the accurate punching from Mayweather.

In his last fight, Mayweather made it look ridiculously easy in beating Juan Manuel Marquez by a 12 round decision. You could expect that Mayweather would do the same thing to Pacquiao unless Roach had some unheard of strategy to use for the fight. Mayweather doesn’t have any weak points to exploit like Hatton, De La Hoya and Cotto.

Roach wouldn’t have as many options available to him for this fight like he would against other beatable opponents that Pacquiao has been matched against. This is why perhaps I see Pacquiao not taking the fight with Mayweather. It would be a bad match-up for Pacquiao and he would have little chance of winning the fight.

Another reason why the fight won’t take place is because one of these two fighters would have to give in and take less. I don’t see Pacquiao or Mayweather doing that, and I doubt either would be happy fighting for a 50-50 purse split. Mayweather sees himself as being the pay-per-view attraction for this fight, and Pacquiao will likely feel the same way.



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