Koncz: We’re [Pacquiao] not going to underestimate Mayweather

By Boxing News - 03/02/2015 - Comments

pac245By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz says that they don’t plan on underestimating Floyd Mayweather Jr for their fight on May 2nd, even though some people are saying that Mayweather’s legs are shot.

Koncz thinks that one of the reasons why Mayweather initially struggled in his fights against Marcos Maidana and Miguel Cotto is because he may have overlooked them.

Mayweather didn’t overlook Cotto and Maidana. If you look at those fights you can see that Mayweather chose to fight their fights by staying in the pocket for most of the 12 rounds in order to make it more entertaining for the boxing fans.

When Mayweather did elect to start moving in the later rounds of both of those fights, he was able to totally dominate them to get the decision.

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“It’s going to be a very tough fight. People say that Floyd’s legs are shot. In fact Manny and I were talking about that last night,” Koncz said via RingTV.com. “Maybe Floyd underestimated [Marcos Maidana and Miguel Cotto], so we’re not going to underestimate Floyd. We know he will be in the best shape, we know he wants to retain his ‘0.’ We know he wants to prove that he’s better than Manny. So we’re prepared for that.”

If Pacquiao chose to fight Cotto and Maidana by standing in the pocket for much of the fight rather than using his in and out style of fighting, I think Pacquiao would struggle even worse than Mayweather did. As long as there wasn’t a catch-weight involved to weaken Cotto and Maidana, Pacquiao would have major problems if he stood in the pocket the way Mayweather did against those fighters.

You have to give Mayweather a ton of credit for him being willing to stand his ground and fight Cotto and Maidana’s kind of fight, because he easily could have got on his bike and chose to play keep away by picking them apart.

Mayweather didn’t do that. He stood up to them and didn’t shoot in and out the way Pacquiao did in his catch-weight fight against Cotto. Mayweather also didn’t fight Cotto at a catch-weight. He fought him at 154, so technically Mayweather fought a stronger version of Cotto than the one Pacquiao fought, and he did it by staying in the pocket.

Koncz is right about the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight being a tough one for Pacquiao. We saw how badly Pacquiao struggled against Juan Manuel Marquez in their four fights together. Mayweather is like a bigger, faster and more accurate version of Marquez.

If Pacquiao couldn’t handle Marquez in their four fights together, then it stands to reason that Pacquiao will have just as much problems against Mayweather, if not more. If Mayweather chooses to use movement against Pacquiao, then this fight could turn out to be a real nightmare for the Filipino fighter. He didn’t have to deal with any kind of real movement in his fights against Marquez, but he’ll surely have to deal with that against Mayweather, because he’s not going to make it easy for him.



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