By Keith Darren:The two greatest fighters on the planet had gone their own way after two unsuccessful attempts to have them face each other. Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao will be facing Antonio Margarito on November 11 at Dallas Cowboys Stadium at Texas while Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. went on vacation and savored the fruits of his fight against Shane Mosley whom he unanimously defeated last year.

Unfortunately, Floyd figured in an unfortunate incident involving him and his ex-gf Josie Harris. While Floyd is busy preparing for a legal battle which stemmed from that incident, Manny is busy preparing for his fight against Margarito.

Although boxing fans are eager to find out who will prevail between the Pacman and the Tijuana Tornado, still, they are more eager to find out who is the real pound for pound king. And the only way to find out is to have Pac and Money slugged it out in the ring and let their fists do the talking. And if that happened, hopefully next year, who will it gonna be?

It is worthy to note that they are poles apart when it comes to fighting. Manny is an aggressive fighter who loves to fight toe to toe, engaged his opponent at once, punches in volume and undoubtedly the best offensive boxer of our time. On the other hand, Floyd is known to be a ring tactician, the best counter puncher and the current best defensive boxer. If fitted against each other, it will be defense versus offense.

In Floyd’s last fight against Mosley, he defeated Sugar Shane in a fashionable way. Although he got tagged in the second round, he made Shane looked like an old and a has-been fighter. Floyd is simply at his best in that fight landing his jabs with precision that kept Shane at bay. After round 2, Shane seemed lost and disoriented not knowing where Floyd’s punches were coming and after 12 rounds, as we all know, Floyd emerged victorious.

On the other hand, Pac’s last opponent was Clottey whom he dominated and able to defend his crown via a unanimous decision. Many people are not happy with that fight since Clottey just shelled himself up and barely threw punches while Pac registered the second most number of punches thrown in a fight (Margarito has the most number and coincidentally against the same opponent, Clottey).

If Floyd and Pac were to fight now, it will be hard to determine the outcome of the fight if we’re just going to analyze their previous fights. Floyd tends to gauge his opponent, as he did against Shane and in most of his fights, during the first two rounds. And that’s the reason why Shane was able to tag him. But after two rounds, Floyd, as he always did, was able to adapt and make it his show by making his opponent miss, hit him with his jabs, and counter with blinding speed. The question is, can he do that against Pacman? It will be dangerous if he were going to gauge Pac in the first two rounds. With powerful combinations and speed, Pac can knock his opponent, regardless of size in only about two rounds. So therefore, Floyd needs to study Pac’s style and learn to adapt at the very start of the round. But Pac’s ability should not be discounted. His team knew this and they are going to slugged it out at the start of the round so as not to give Floyd a chance to even gauge Pac. They will go early and seek a knock out win knowing if the fight go the distance, it will be Floyd’s night. On stamina, speed, footwork and skills, for me they are even. But there is one department that Pac is known to have edge over Floyd, and that is power. If Pac caught Floyd with his powerful combinations, then it will be his night. On the ability to take punches, Pac also edge out Floyd in that area. He ate the power punches of Cotto, Clottey and even Delahoya, all much bigger than him, and still came out the winner. Pac will let himself got hit by Floyd’s jab in order that he be able to hit Floyd, a tactic he always used against his opponent and proven effective. But will Floyd have an answer to this? Yes, of course. He can hit and run and escape from Pac’s fury. He is not a knock out artist but a point laureate and he knows all he need is points to defeat Pac applying the sweet science which he honed and perfected through time. But on the other side, Pac is a lion with all the motivation to win this fight. He knows Floyd’s style, and every fight that Floyd had never misses the scrutinizing eyes of the maestro Freddie Roach. They know they can not let Floyd simply jabs and keep Pac at bay. They need to get in and trade punches with Money. They are going to run after Floyd and Pac’s stamina is ready for this kind of fighting. And if Floyd will do what he did against Shane, and probably he will, by just standing in front and making his opponent misses, then he is going to kiss the canvass for sure. He needs to move all round, no time to stay in one point because Pac will gonna catch him if he will.

As I see it, there is fifty five percent chance that Pacquiao will win by a knockout early in the rounds or forty five percent chance Floyd will win by a unanimous decision.