Mayweather is too smart for Pacquiao, says Fernando Vargas

By Boxing News - 01/18/2015 - Comments

floyd0012By Chris Williams: Former IBF/WBA junior middleweight champion Fernando Vargas is really looking forward to the mega-fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao this May. Vargas, 37, thinks the fight between them will be taking place, and he sees Mayweather as being far too intelligent for the 36-year-old Filipino star to handle in this fight.

Vargas points out that the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight isn’t as valuable as it once was due to Pacquiao having been exposed by Juan Manuel Marquez in their fight in 2012, but he’s still interested in seeing the fight.

Pacquiao wasn’t just exposed by Marquez in 2012. He was exposed in all four of their fights, but was given controversial wins and a controversial draw in their first three fights before Marquez decided he was sick of the judging for the fight and decided to KO Pacquiao the last time they fought.

Vargas sees Mayweather’s ring intelligence being too much for Pacquiao to deal with when they wind up facing each other. Vargas thinks Mayweather will simply out-box Pacquiao in winning the fight.

“He’s [Mayweather] too smart, too intelligent. The fight with Marquez exposed Pacquaio, so it doesn’t have the same price value, but I’m still gonna buy it.” Vargas said via Thatboxingvoice.com. “Everyone was saying how much they would never fight, now the fight is here to come, and I’m gonna watch it. If you have gloves on you have a chance, but Floyd is just too smart. He takes care of his body, yeah he gambles and does all his stuff, but he doesn’t drink or do anything to hinder his body.”

In watching Pacquiao’s recent fights against Chris Algieri, Tim Bradley and Brandon Rios, it’s difficult to argue against Mayweather dominating the fight. Pacquiao still rushes in too much when attacking his opponents, and that’s a style that is going to be easy for Mayweather to take advantage of. But even if Pacquiao stays on the outside and tries to box Mayweather, it’s still going to be easy for Mayweather to take advantage of Pacquiao because he’s not a great outside fighter.

Pacquiao’s limited reach will make it necessary for him to come after Mayweather and try to outwork him by throwing dozens of punches. The thing is Mayweather isn’t going to standstill and let Pacquiao have his way. He’s going to move and pick him off with pot shots all night long.

The only Pacquiao will do well in this fight is if Mayweather mercifully stops and gives him a handicap by standing still in order to make the fight competitive. It would be like how Mayweather gave the limited Marcos Maidana a handicap in their first fight by him standing with his back against the ropes for much of the fight in order to make it exciting for the boxing fans. However, once Mayweather took the fight to the center of the ring, Maidana was nearly helpless and ended up losing the last 8 rounds of the fight.

Pacquiao moves around too much in predictable patterns, and Mayweather would quickly figure him out and easily outbox him.



Comments are closed.