By Raj Parmar: With news of a potential 2015 showdown between Floyd Mayweather (46-0, 26 KO’s) and Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KO’s) in full force, both Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach have spoken out about how they feel about the fight.
Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum has regularly been mentioning the possibility of the fight occurring next year during Pacquiao’s promotional tour for his welterweight title defense against Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KO’s), and both Manny and Freddie have weighed in on all the talk surrounding the possibility of the two ring titans finally meeting each other in the ring.
“Of course, I want this fight,” Pacquiao said to sfchronicle.com, “People have always been bothering me, ‘When is this fight going to happen?’ … ‘When is this fight going to happen?’ I am ready to fight Floyd anytime.”
While Pacquiao is seemingly eager to step in the ring with Floyd, Roach is likewise optimistic to see if his charge can take down the pound for pound king. While acknowledging that the fight is past due and may have lost a little bit of steam to it, Roach feels Mayweather is fading and now is the perfect time for Manny to engage with Floyd.
“Everyone would have liked to see the fight have happened earlier,” Roach said, “But it’s still the biggest fight out there, and there is still a huge audience that wants to see it. I think Mayweather is a little shot, and we have a better shot now.”
Freddie has been stating for a long time now that Mayweather’s legs are not that strong anymore and his habit in recent years of fighting off the ropes during long stretches of fights as he did with Marcos Maidana, Miguel Cotto and Victor Ortiz are a direct result of his inability to move for the full 12 rounds anymore.
Floyd however was able to move around the ring very well when he dominated Robert Guerrero and Saul Alvarez last year and showed no signs of any lost power in the condition of his legs. Those two fighters however did not put on nearly as much intense pressure on Floyd as Maidana, Cotto and Ortiz did therefore Roach may feel a constant pressure fighter will have a few opportunities to land something big on Floyd. Manny is one the sport’s most constant pressure fighters and he does it with blazing speed, therefore seeing Floyd fight off the ropes in some of his more recent fights seems to have Roach also hungry for Manny to get in the ring with Mayweather as soon as possible.
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