Deep Dive: Mayweather v Pacquaio Part 2/2

By alclassico - 03/17/2015 - Comments

LR_TRAPPFOTOS-MAYPAC PRESSER-8865(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/Mayweather Promotions) By Al Classico: In part 1 of this article I covered Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao’s boxing record and opposition faced and who holds the advantage in those two areas when comparing the two. My conclusion was that Mayweather held the advantage in both areas. However, only a very small one when comparing the opposition faced.

In this post I will deep dive into each fighter’s strengths and weaknesses, styles and what the experts are saying.

Firstly let’s get into the bread and butter of what each fighter does well and what each fighter does not do so well.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Floyd Mayweather

Strengths

Intelligence, Adaptability– It is widely reported that Mayweather struggles to read words on a page, but there are 2 things that he reads better than any other fighter or even sportsman: the number of 0’s written on his checks and his opponents inside of the ring.

Defense– All bases are covered.

Chin-He has only taken a few clean punches but those were big and his chin and legs had withstood the onslaught. There is also that age old wisdom that ‘the best chin is the one that doesn’t get hit’. Floyd’s chin falls into this category.

Timing– Whilst Mayweather does have genuine hand and reaction speed, the real weapon here is his timing. This is why he appears much faster than he actually is because he anticipates better than anyone and reacts accordingly. Amir Khan and Pacquiao have more genuine hand speed BUT their timing and anticipation are not as developed.

Speed– He does still have genuine hand speed which he utilities to its fullest potential because of his timing.

Entrapment– He is able to set traps for opponents to walk into. E.g. Hatton K.O, Guerrero countering etc.

Stamina/fitness– He is definitely the fittest and most in shape fighter due to his ridiculous work ethic and focus. Walks around at fight weight all year round.

Unbeaten record- Let’s be clear. When you are fighting all the top opponents then records DO matter. It shows that Mayweather has found a way to defeat each one of his previous opponents (25 of which were title contenders/holders). So credit where credit is due and Floyd knows what it takes to beat a variety of the elite fighters.

Effective- Doesn’t throw volume punches but each punch has a purpose. His body jab is very underrated and his lead rights and hooks constantly slow down his opponent. E.g. Marcos Maidana, Ricky Hatton, and Shane Mosley etc.

Versatile- Does not rely on one game plan. He has many options and weapons to use to neutralize and exploit opponents and seamlessly mixes is it up in the ring.

Weaknesses

Vulnerable to attack early in the fight- Can get caught early in the fight against aggressive fighters E.g. Zab Judah, Mosley, Maidana, even Robert Guerrero.

Small signs of slowing down-His footwork and positioning seems to be slowing down a little bit and even his reflexes. He got caught by Maidana flush in the corner, luckily for him it happened at the end of the round.

YouTube video

Doesn’t capitalize- In his several last fights he has been too risk averse and has not been capitalizing on KO opportunities when his opponents looked in trouble. He had opportunities to KO Cotto, Maidana 2, even Alvarez who was a sitting duck. The problem with this is that he doesn’t demand enough respect from his opponents and therefore always leaves an opportunity for them to stay in the fight.

Seems to struggle more against aggressive southpaws– this is especially true in the earlier rounds. He struggles more against aggressive southpaws in early rounds than he does against aggressive orthodox punchers (e.g. Victor Ortiz, Zab Judah and even Robert Guerrero). Generally though against ALL aggressive opponents he can look vulnerable in the early rounds.

Manny Pacquaio

Strengths

Relentless Aggression-He is all smiles and a very polite and humble guy outside of the ring but inside the ring he is a pit-bull going for the jugular. We saw this against De La Hoya, Cotto, and Margarito. He already possesses power but his relentless aggression ensures that these powerful punches are thrown in bunches and they do not stop!

Speed- he has genuine hand speed (hand speed alone is faster than Mayweather’s) and can throw a large volume of punches in a short period of time from all angles. He doesn’t need to have his feet planted to get punches off. He also has very fast feet and can shuffle quickly in and out of position from all angles.

Power– whilst he doesn’t have huge one punch knockout power he does have very damaging power which when thrown in Bunches are devastating.

Awkward southpaw– Southpaws are naturally awkward because they are a minority but Manny is even more awkward because of his erratic rhythm in timing his punches. His timing is unconventional which is why a lot of guys get caught as it is hard to judge. E.g. against Chris Algieri where Algieri’s pivoting worked in the early rounds until he suddenly got clocked with a randomly timed left to the jaw. After that it was a different fight.

Fitness/stamina/explosiveness- he is able to maintain an explosive pace of attack for a long period of time. This is so relentless that it batters opponents into submission. Even with this type of exertion he still maintains a high level of quality output.

Experience- he has been in there with more fighters than Mayweather has so he has also got an abundance of ring craft. Whilst he hasn’t faced anything like Mayweather yet, he will feel very comfortable with the magnitude of the fight and the whole circus that goes with it.

Weaknesses

Overly aggressive– this is a strength when fighting stationary ‘fighters’ who are willing to engage such as Oscar De la Hoya, Antonio Margarito, Brandon Rios, and Tim Bradley. But when he is up against a smart ‘boxer’ and counter puncher he can tend to over extend himself and get caught. This is evident against Marquez in all of his fights where he was getting chopped down with straight rights and hooks. There is no one better at countering than Floyd so if Manny is overly aggressive he will walk into Mayweather’s web.

Has accumulated damage: He has been in more wars that Mayweather and therefore has aged worse than Floyd. He is definitely less explosive than he was several years ago (this could be also because of discontinued use of PEDs but this is another topic).

Lack of versatility. The truth about life is that it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Whilst Pacquiao’s boxing skill shave definitely improved with the decline in his athleticism and power, he does not have a wide variety of attacking options to turn to if things aren’t going his way.

Chin– He has taken punishment and has been brutally knocked out. Regardless of his positive mindset and motivation and preparation, the cold hard truth is that once the brain has received that kind of trauma it is no longer the same and the fighter becomes more vulnerable to K.O. (Examples are Roy Jones, Ricky Hatton and countless others).

Opposition faced– he hasn’t really been tested over the last several years like Mayweather has and therefore may be a little rusty when they step into the ring.

In conclusion and cutting to the chase Mayweather has more weapons and less weaknesses which is why he should theoretically win this fight. However, whilst Pacquiao doesn’t have as many weapons and has more weaknesses, his weapons are MORE destructive so if he can land these, then Mayweather will be in trouble.

Styles

I will just touch on this because I have already described strengths and weaknesses above. ‘Styles make fights’ is true and many have used this as the main argument on why Pacquiao will win. This is true in most cases but my opinion is that this point doesn’t apply to this fight and here is the reason.

Pacquiao has a distinct style and a distinct strategy and he does not deviate much from this from fight to fight. This style works on other fighters who also have a distinct style. Mayweather does not have 1 distinct style. He can use different styles and game plans throughout 1 fight in order to neutralize his opponents and find the winning strategy to win. In other words Pacquiao knows only 1 or maybe 2 ways to fight whereas Mayweather’s can adopt many different ways to fight. This is why I believe that this argument is not valid in this case.

Expert opinions

I won’t quote all the experts who have given their opinion on this fight because there are too many but the overwhelming majority of pro boxers, mutual opponents and trainers who have been interviewed about this have given the edge to Mayweather. And most of them have given the same or similar reasons: Mayweather is too intelligent and will adapt, BUT Pacquiao has the potential to catch him early. There are only a few who are claiming an easy win for either fighter, most notably Paulie Malignaggi sees this as an easy fight for Mayweather. On May 2nd anyone with any opinion on this fight will be proven either wrong or right.

To sum up my lengthy article, if one HAD to choose a winner and put their life savings on the fight then the smart money would be on ‘MONEY’. On paper, which reflects their prior achievements, Mayweather holds too many advantages, most notably his intelligence and adaptability in being able to figure out and find a way to win. That being said, Pacquiao does have some serious weapons which IF he can impose on Mayweather will inflict serious damage. This is a big IF because as Mayweather himself said along the lines ‘ Fighters watch my fights and say they will do this and do that when they fight me but they find out it’s VERY different when they get inside the ring’. So to end it, my prediction is a point’s win for Mayweather OR an early knockout for Pacquiao.

Please leave your comments below as I would love to hear your comments!



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