DeMarcus Corley to work as sparring partner for Floyd Mayweather Jr

By Boxing News - 03/01/2015 - Comments

floyd423By Chris Williams: Former IBF champion DeMarcus Corley (42-22-1, 25 KOs) will be working as one of WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr’s sparring partners to help him get ready for his May 2nd fight against Manny Pacquiao, according to Fighthype.com. The other sparring partners aren’t known as of now.

While Corley doesn’t have a fighting style that is similar to Pacquiao, he does have similar punching power. The difference is Pacquiao is faster and a little bit younger at 36. Corley is taller than Pacquiao at 5’7” compared to the 5’6” Pacquiao. Corley’s southpaw style should get Mayweather prepared well for Pacquiao’s southpaw stance.

Like Pacquiao, Mayweather begins his training camp officially on Monday, March 2nd.

Mayweather previously fought Corley 11 years ago in a fight in 2004. Mayweather won the fight by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision.

YouTube video

Corley was arguably robbed not too long ago in a fight against Ruslan Provodnikov in 2011. Corley fought well enough to deserve the decision, but it was given to the up and coming Provodnikov.

Corley has won his last two fights against Dedrick Bell and Daniel Attah.
Mayweather tends to bring in a lot of high quality sparring partners to get him ready for his fights, and I see this being no different.

He’ll have a huge amount of talented fighters coming over to his Mayweather gym in Las Vegas, Nevada to help him get ready for the fight. The perfect guy to help Mayweather get ready for Pacquiao is Mercito Gesta. He’s of similar height and has a fighting style that is similar to Pacquiao’s style. He’d be someone that could give Mayweather some good rounds during training camp to get him ready for the 36-year-old Pacquiao.

Mayweather mostly just needs to work on his conditioning more so than his sparring. He already has the ring IQ to box well against Pacquiao without the need to spar a lot. The sparring is nothing more than something to keep Mayweather sharp for the combat that he’ll be enduring on May 2nd. But as far as the sparring preparing him in a real way in terms of battle tactics, I don’t see it as being important for the fight.

Mayweather already knows Pacquiao’s fighting style, and he’ll come up with a good game plan on the fly depending on the things that Pacquiao does inside the ring on May 2nd. If Pacquiao tries to put a lot of pressure on him like he’d done with most of his opponents, then you can bet that Mayweather will look to counter punch Pacquiao all night long to take advantage of his sloppy fighting style.

Corley will give Mayweather good preparation for Pacquiao with the way that Corley punches and from his southpaw stance. Corley should get Mayweather ready enough for the fight to be prepared for anything that Pacquiao brings to the table in this fight. Corley has the talent to mimic Pacquiao’s style of fighting if need be, and that should help Mayweather.

Pacquiao’s late arrival in coming to the U.S last night will hamper the ability of the two fighters of going on any kind of press tour. If Pacquiao had come to the United States the money the fight was halted, then there would have been a possibility of the two fighters going on a tour of the United States to market the fight.



Comments are closed.