Richardson: Mosley created the blueprint on Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 05/16/2011 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Trainer Nazeem Richardson believes that a blueprint to beat Manny Pacquiao was created in his last fight against his fighter Shane Mosley. Although Pacquiao won the fight handily by a lopsided 12 round decision, he struggled with the movement of Mosley and seemed incapable of cutting off the ring properly to force Mosley to fight. Mosley didn’t show a lot of speed or great lateral movement in the bout, but he still was able to make Pacquiao look lead-footed.

In an interview at 15rounds.com, Richardson said “I exposed Pacquiao. Everybody will want to fight him now.” Richardson went on to say that unless Pacquiao fixes the flaws that were exposed in the Mosley fight, he will have problems.

I agree with Richardson. If they put Pacquiao in with a fighter with boxing ability instead of the stationary fighters that Pacquiao has been matched up with in the past three years, I can see Pacquiao looking silly and getting beaten. Guys like Timothy Bradley and Floyd Mayweather Jr. would be a huge headache for Pacquiao, because they have quick feet and are able to get out of the way of punches. Pacquiao would eat a lot of jabs against those guys and it wouldn’t be pretty to see him plodding around the ring unable to catch up to these guys.

I know Pacquiao said he had leg cramps in the Mosley fight, but he didn’t look any better on his feet in his bout against Antonio Margarito last year. I think the weight that Pacquiao has been putting on has really slowed him down to the point where he can’t move like he used to. He never was good at cutting off a ring, but he’s been lucky to have been matched against mostly guys that have come right at him throughout his career instead of guys that can box and move. As far as I can tell, Mosley was really the only pure mover/boxer that Pacquiao has ever faced in his career and he didn’t fight him until Mosley was 39.



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