By Chris Williams: Trainer John David Jackson believes that the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight won’t be as big as would have been two years ago had the two mea stars stepped into the ring and fought at the top of their games, as Jackson feels that Pacquiao is starting to deteriorate, according to an interview by writer Chris Robinson at examiner.com.

Jackson told examiner.com “It’s [Mayweather-Pacquiao] not as intriguing as it once was because Pacquiao slipped in his last fight [against Juan Manuel Marquez]. He’s been slipping. The fact is that fans don’t realize it that’s been fighting guys who had to lose weight to fight him. It was an intriguing point about two years ago. Now, everyone knows at this point Floyd would probably pick him apart.”

I completely agree with Jackson. I think Pacquiao has been slipping since his fight with Joshua Clottey. It’s weird because in Pacquiao’s fight before that against Miguel Cotto, he looked great, albeit against a guy that had to come in at a catchweight that was requested by Pacquiao’s management.

But Pacquiao was really quick in that fight and showed excellent movement. But after that fight, Pacquiao looked bigger and slower in his bout with Clottey and he was no longer moving like he used to. Maybe Pacquiao took a lot of damage in beating Cotto and that took something out of him? I can’t really put my finger on it but Pacquiao didn’t look the same after the Cotto fight.

Pacquiao has been winning but against guys that have been old, past their best, coming off bad beatings or drained from a catchweight. Pacquiao doesn’t look like he used to and I don’t know that Arum wants to match him with Mayweather at this point.

The time to have done that was when Pacquiao was at his best two years ago, but he’s not there anymore. If Arum is interested in really matching him with Mayweather, then he needs to do it sooner rather than later unless he’s going to wait until the very end to cash out. I think Mayweather is aging really well like his father Floyd Sr. and he’s someone that will still be on top of his game in two years. I can’t say the same thing for Pacquiao. He’s changing from fight to fight in the negative sense.

Jackson points out in the same interview that Arum has done a great job of matchmaking for Pacquiao by putting him in with weight drained fighters at catchweights, and guys that are over the hill. Jackson thinks that Arum screwed up by choosing 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez for Pacquiao’s last fight.

Jackson feels that the only reason Marquez was selected at this point was because they assumed he was over the hill due to his advanced age but it didn’t work out well for them. That fight right there showed you how badly Pacquiao has deteriorate to where a 38-year-old fighter both looked and fought like he was the younger guy.

This is the same Marquez that Mayweather beat with ease two years ago, and look what Marquez did to Pacquiao two years later. Jackson goes on to point out that Antonio Margarito and De La Hoya were catchweight fights for Pacquiao involving him fighting guys that had to lose weight and get weakened in the process to fight him. Jackson thinks that the average fan has no clue about that.