By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s long-time promoter Bob Arum says he thinks Pacquiao will score a knockout over Floyd Mayweather Jr on May 2nd in their huge money fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Arum says that he’s very confident that Pacquiao will either KO Mayweather or beat him by a lopsided decision. Arum sees the fight as being a total domination by the 36-year-old Pacquiao.
This is kind of a departure from the way most boxing fans see the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight going. The fans largely see it as a fight that will likely result in one of the two fighters winning by a close decision in a competitive bout. But Arum and Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach both see the fight as being a one-sided affair with Pacquiao giving Mayweather a real thrashing in the ring.
“I’m confident that Manny can win convincingly by knockout or by decision with a large margin over Mayweather,” Arum said via the Manilatimes.net.
If this was 2009, I think some fans could agree with what the 83-year-old Arum is saying about Pacquiao having a good chance of scoring a knockout victory over Mayweather. But things have changed, Pacquiao has gotten old, and he’s not knocked out anyone since 2009.
You can’t count on Pacquiao knocking out anyone at this point in his career, least of all a superstar fighter like Mayweather. It would be asking a lot of Pacquiao to even score a knockdown of Mayweather at this point, because his power seems have really declined in the last six years. Roach and Arum appear to be basing their knockout assumptions on a Pacquiao who no longer exists.
The older Pacquiao is no longer a knockout puncher, and he’s also no longer a fighter who can fight hard for a full three minutes of every round. Pacquiao now fights hard for maybe 30 seconds to one minute before gassing out.
“The people love Manny ever since [Pacquiao] for his generosity and for a being a gentleman while Floyd on the other hand, you know is…” Arum said. “Manny is the hero and Floyd is the villain in this fight. Everybody loves Manny.”
Whether people love Pacquiao or not, it’s not going to make any difference on May 2nd. Mayweather isn’t going to take it easy on Pacquiao just because a bunch of people love Pacquiao. The Filipino fighter is going to need to bring some skills, power and some stamina if he wants to hang with Mayweather on 5/2. People can love Pacquiao all they want, but they’re not going to be in the ring with him running interference to keep Mayweather from giving him a boxing lesson.
Arum can feel good about Pacquiao after the fight by telling himself that the people love his fighter, but that’s probably not going to help him out during the fight if Mayweather is the better guy. At best, Pacquiao will be able to turn things around and rebuild himself after a loss to Mayweather if the boxing public truly love him the way Arum thinks they do. But I have a feeling that Pacquiao is going to lose a mess of fans if he loses to Mayweather. There’s not room for being second best. As former baseball manager Leo Durocher once said only “nice guys finish last.”
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