Mayweather: Pacquiao’s a has-been; his career is over

By Boxing News - 07/03/2013 - Comments

Mayweather arrives(Photo credit: Esther Lin) By Chris Williams: Unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) came out swinging at the San Antonio press conference with WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez this week when one of the fans from the audience screamed at Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao. Instead of ignoring the fan, Mayweather said “Pacquiao’s a has-been; his career is over. [Juan] Manuel Marquez is a legend. I commend him.”

Mayweather should have just stayed on message with his comments about Canelo, because he lost his train of thought when he was interrupted. Before the comment from the fan, Mayweather had been giving a good speech about having tunnel vision in reaching for greatness in the ring.

To be sure, the 34-year-old Pacquiao has lost his last two fights and his career is definitely on the ropes as he moves towards his crucial fight against Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) on November 23rd at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.

A loss for Pacquiao in this fight could be curtains for his career. You can make excuses about Pacquiao having lost two fights in a row by saying that his loss to Tim Bradley last year was a controversial loss, but there was nothing controversial about Pacquiao’s loss to Marquez last December.

Marquez removed all doubts by knocking Pacquiao out cold. If Pacquiao gets knocked out cold by Rios as well, then it’ll be extremely difficult for Pacquiao to come back from that kind of defense. I’m sure there will be all kinds of advice that will be pouring in from sympathetic fans in how to save Pacquiao’s career at that point; such as ‘he needs more time off to rest his brain’ or ‘Pacquiao needs a new trainer that can teach him some defense.’ I don’t think any of it will do him any good.

Pacquiao can dump trainer Freddie Roach and take a year off from boxing, and I still think he’d likely have just as many problems when he returns to the ring on November 23rd against Rios.

If Pacquiao can’t beat a basic fighter like Rios, it’ll be bad for him because this is a guy that he should be able to roll over no problem. The Pacquiao from 2009 would destroy Rios easily, but I don’t think that Pacquiao exists anymore.

Likewise, I don’t think the Pacquiao that destroyed Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton exists anymore either. He’s slower now, and we don’t know whether he’ll have any lingering effects from his knockout loss to Marquez. We’ll find that out in a hurry on November 23rd when Rios starts nailing him with big shots on the button.



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