Pacquiao has 45 percent chance of beating Mayweather, says Marquez’s trainer

By Boxing News - 03/22/2015 - Comments

beristain3By Chris Williams: Nacho Beristain, the trainer for Mexican star Juan Manuel Marquez, feels that Manny Pacquiao has a 45 percent chance of defeating Floyd Mayweather Jr in their fight on May 2nd.

Beristain sees Mayweather as a slight favorite in the fight. Beristain likes Pacquiao’s hand speed, intelligence and his ability to throw combinations. Beristains lists those things in Pacquiao’s favor when he gets in the ring with Mayweather at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mayweather is the favorite by a 2-1 margin regardless of what Beristain says about him being a slight favorite. The expert betting people obviously see Mayweather as being the better fighter due to his ring generalship, hand speed, intelligence, mobility, athleticism, longer arms, better height and superior resume. You can also throw in better experience, because Pacquiao really hasn’t faced the same quality of opposition that Mayweather has fought.

Pacquiao has fought a few good fighters during his career, but a lot of them are less than spectacular, and he fought a lot of guys when they were past their best, such as Shane Mosley, Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, Antonio Margarito, Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya. Morales had already had wars against Barrera by the time he fought Pacquiao, and he wasn’t the same fighter.

Hatton and De La Hoya were weight drained, as was a past his best Margarito. Mosley old and past it by the time he fought Pacquiao. Of the quality fighters Pacquiao has faced in his career, he’s arguably only fought Tim Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez and Miguel Cotto. That’s three guys. The rest of the fighters are guys like Brandon Rios, Joshua Clottey, Chris Algieri and other fighters of this level.

“I believe that Pacquiao has 45 percent of a chance; Mayweather is the favorite but by very little,” Beristain said via ESPN Deportes. “I always liked more Pacquiao for commercial style [of fighting], which people pay with pleasure to see him fight, and the other [Mayweather, we already know it, a defensive, style that is kind of weird.”

Pacquiao does have an entertaining style of fighting, there’s no disputing that. But that’s not going to help him when he gets in the ring with Mayweather. If might be something that could console Pacquiao afterwards when/if he gets totally dominated by Mayweather. Pacquiao will be able to say to himself that he has an entertaining style, but I still see him coming up empty against Mayweather.

Pacquiao is going to need more than an entertaining style on May 2nd if he wants to beat Mayweather. It won’t be enough that his style of fighting is entertaining. He’s going to need to bring the offense 100 percent, and he’s going to need a lot of help by Mayweather by him electing to stand and slug for the entire 12 round fight for him to have a chance of getting the victory.

If Mayweather starts boxing Pacquiao at any point in the fight, then I see Pacquiao getting beaten. He simply can’t out-box Mayweather.

“On paper who looks the best is Mayweather,” Beristain said. “The knockout by Juan Manuel of Manny [in 2012]. But Pacquiao has many things in its favor – the speed, and being a smart fighter. Even though people think otherwise, he knows when to shoot his combinations.”

To be sure, Pacquiao has good hand speed, but he’s so much shorter than Mayweather. That’s going to be a problem for Pacquiao, because he’s going to need Mayweather to stand in one place and make it easy for him to throw his shots by letting Pacquiao get in close.

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If Mayweather uses movement, keeps Pacquiao on the distance, and jabs him nonstop, Pacquiao is going to be boxed silly in this fight.

What unknown about the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight is how Mayweather’s now punching power is going to play into this fight. Mayweather has been growing stronger with the help of his new strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza, who is putting him through a tough strength and conditioning regiment to develop Mayweather’s punching power.

It appears that it’s already paying off for Mayweather, because he’s knocking out sparring partners and beating them up. Ariza was the guy who was instrumental in developing Pacquiao’s punching power when he moved up in weight from division to division during the prime of his career.

Instead of Pacquiao keeping Ariza and dumping trainer Freddie Roach, Pacquiao dumped Ariza and kept Roach. It’s interesting to note that Pacquiao hasn’t had a knockout since Ariza was let go.



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