Pacquiao: I love being the underdog!

By Boxing News - 02/22/2015 - Comments

pac2By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao says he doesn’t mind being the underdog in his upcoming fight against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr on May 2nd. Pacquiao probably hasn’t been an underdog too many times during his career, and perhaps not since his fights against Miguel Cotto and Oscar De La Hoya.

There’s no way Pacquiao was an underdog against the likes of Tim Bradley, Brandon Rios, Juan Manuel Marquez, Chris Algieri, Shane Mosely, Ricky Hatton, and Antonio Margarito.

“This is just like any other fight I had before. I’ve been in this kind of situation many times in my previous fights. It doesn’t scare me. I love being the underdog,” Pacquiao said via abs-cbnnews.com. “It even motivates me to train hard and go for the crown,” the 36-year-old said.

This fight isn’t just like any other fight. If Pacquiao is treating this like it’s just any other fight, then he’s going to get really beaten and beaten badly. This isn’t one of the guys that his promoter Arum has dug up for Pacquiao to shine against and give his Midas touch to for one of his Top Rank stable fighters. This is a live opponent, and Pacquiao needs to snap out of the routine that he’s been in for the last six years.

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The reason Pacquiao is the underdog in this fight is because the betters see Mayweather as the more talented fighter of the two. That’s not a good thing for Pacquiao no matter how he wants to whitewash it and assign a spin. It means that he’s facing a guy with more talent.

I can’t remember the last time Pacquiao was an underdog. The Cotto fight was possibly one of them, but in that case, Cotto agreed to a strength draining catch-weight in order to take the fight, and that obviously took a lot of the game out of Cotto. In hindsight, Cotto should have said no to the catch-weight and instead moved up to 154, because he had no business fighting underneath the 147 pound limit in order to accommodate Pacquiao.

Pacquiao hasn’t had to be the underdog because he’s been fighting old fighters like Shane Mosley and former kick boxers like Chris Algieri. We haven’t see Pacquiao getting matched up with guys like Keith Thurman, Amir Khan, Kell Brook, Marcos Maidana, Danny Garcia, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Lucas Matthysse and a 154 pound version of Miguel Cotto.

The match-making that has been done for Pacquiao has enabled him to be the favorite in his fights, and that obviously has been a huge positive for him until now.

Mayweather is better than a 2 to 1 favorite to beat Pacquiao, and those odds are likely to go up as the fight nears.

Being the underdog could hurt Pacquiao in different ways, starting with him potentially over-training in training camp. Instead of him doing what he normally does in training camp, he could overexert himself due to him wanting to get in even better shape to try and prove the people wrong.

If Pacquiao overdoes it in training camp then there’s a chance he’ll not be as strong for the fight. Being an underdog can also hurt Pacquiao in the fight by making him fight sloppy, leading to him making a lot of mistakes. You don’t want to make a mistake against a master counter puncher like Mayweather because he’ll make you pay for your mistakes.



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