By Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Jr is well aware of the advantages that he has over the shorter 5’6” Filipino fighter Manny Pacquiao as they head into their fight on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayweather sees himself as bigger, taller with a longer reach than the 36-year-old Pacquiao.
Mayweather also notes that Pacquiao has lost five times during his career, so the losses are still inside Pacquiao’s head. For his part, Mayweather still doesn’t know how to lose due to him sporting an unbeaten record at 47-0.
“To me, it’s just another day. It’s just another fight. I mean, when you just look at the tale of the tape, I have a longer reach, I’m taller, I’m stronger, and I’m more accurate. I think I seen a major change in Pacquiao,” Mayweather said via Fighthype.com
There’s no question that Pacquiao has slipped a ton since 2009 when he beat Miguel Cotto using a catch-weight handicap. Incidentally, that was the last time that Pacquiao scored a knockout. You can’t miss that Pacquiao has changed because his knockouts have completely dried up.
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach recently gave his theory for why Pacquiao is no longer knocking guys out due to Pacquiao’s natural testosterone having declined with age. Pacquiao was knocking guys out one after another until 2009, and after that it’s been six years without a knockout.
Pacquiao has beaten a lot of fighters bigger than him during his career, but he’s also never fought anyone with the talent that Mayweather has going for him. Pacquiao will definitely struggle with Mayweather’s superior size and reach. He’s not going to be able to count on Mayweather fighting stupid like his last three opponents Chris Algieri, Tim Bradley and Brandon Rios.
All three of those fighters stood in one place and made Pacquiao’s job easy. You can’t fault Rios for not moving, because he doesn’t have the capability to move around the ring. But you can blame Bradley and Algieri for fighting a dumb fight against Pacquiao by them electing to trade with him.
Mayweather doesn’t know how to lose yet, and I doubt that Pacquiao will be the one to teach him. As we already know, Pacquiao struggles against counter-punchers.
Look at what the Mexican warrior Juan Manuel Marquez did to Pacquiao in their four fights together. Marquez arguably won all four of the fights, even though he wound up losing questionable decisions in two of the fights and was given a controversial draw in their first fight.
Mayweather is an even better counter puncher than Marquez, and you can only imagine what Mayweather will do to Pacquiao if he fights as sloppy against him as he’s done in most of his bouts. Mayweather will take advantage of Pacquiao’s sloppy style of fighting by countering him repeatedly with pinpoint shots.
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach is going to have to come up with a new more conservative fighting style for Pacquiao to employ, because if he bum rushes Mayweather like he does against all of his opponents, Mayweather will time him and stop him in his tracks with a perfectly timed left hook or right hand.
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