Fans will see the best Mayweather they’ve ever seen against Pacquiao, says Hopkins

By Boxing News - 03/24/2015 - Comments

floyd33By Chris Williams: Former two division world champion Bernard Hopkins expects boxing star Floyd Mayweather Jr to be at his best when he gets inside the ring with Manny Pacquiao in their long awaited bout on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Hopkins expects Mayweather to have some struggles in the first half of the fight as he figures out the 36-year-old Filipino star Pacquiao. But once Mayweather has figured out how to conquer Pacquiao’s southpaw stance and constantly diving in style of fighting, Hopkins sees Mayweather cruising to a decision.

Hopkins believes it might be a little controversial to some people, but it’ll still be a victory for Mayweather. Hopkins also said that he thinks there will be a rematch between Mayweather and Pacquiao, and in the rematch Mayweather will make it more decisive.

“Mayweather will be in a tug of war for the first six rounds. Mayweather still has enough – not only energy, not only legs, not only IQ – to be able to figure out everything, and anything that’s been done in the first four or five rounds to overcome some things early and win a decision,” Hopkins said via Fighthype.com. “I think people are going to be shocked. You’ll see the best that you’ve ever seen in Mayweather. There’s going to be some drama.”

I do agree with Hopkins that we’re going to be seeing the best Mayweather that we’ve ever seen before or at least the best Mayweather since his two fights with Jose Luis Castillo in 2002. That was the last opponent that Mayweather has fought that gave him a real fight.

All the other opponents that Mayweather has fought since then, he’s not gone all out against them. Mayweather stood in the pocket a lot against his opponents, but he’s not had to give it his all. He’ kept it in 2nd gear for most of his career. Mayweather appeared to take it easy against guys like Ricky Hatton, Oscar De La Hoya, Marcos Maidana, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, Robert Guerrero and Zab Judah. But against Pacquiao, I believe we’re going to see the best Mayweather that there ever was.

I don’t believe it’s going to be a tug of war for the first six rounds. I see it as a tug of war for the first minute of the 1st round, and that I think Mayweather will figured out Pacquiao by then, and will dominate him the rest of the fight.

Don’t get me wrong; I do see Pacquiao landing shots every now and them. It’ll be impossible for Mayweather to shut Pacquiao down completely without him being able to land punches every now and then, but Pacquiao isn’t going to be able to put enough of his punches together to win any of the rounds or hurt Mayweather.

Pacquiao will likely be given one or two mercy rounds by the judges, but it’s not going to be more than one or two, because Mayweather will be focusing on shutting Pacquiao completely in this fight.

Mayweather won’t be easing off on Pacquiao, because there are too many people watching the affair, and he’s not going to want to risk getting robbed like Juan Manuel Marquez arguably was in his first three fights with Pacquiao.



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