By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao says that Floyd Mayweather Jr has never faced an opponent during his career that threw a lot of punches at him. Pacquiao says he’s going to do exactly that when he gets the 38-year-old Mayweather in the ring on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Without realizing it, Pacquiao has given away the game plan for his mega-money fight against Mayweather Jr by saying that he plans on throwing a lot of shots.
“He [Mayweather] has very good speed and footwork, and he has punches, and that makes him look good,” Pacquiao said via Yahoo Sports. “But it depends on the fighter he is going to fight. For me as a boxer, I know what the job is. I’m going to throw a lot of punches, a lot of hard punches.”
I guess Pacquiao doesn’t remember Pacquiao’s first fight against Marcos Maidana last year. Maidana threw a lot of shots against a stationary Mayweather for the first six rounds. However, in the second half of the fight, Mayweather adapted by moving more, and he was able to nullify Maidana’s high volume punch attack.
Maidana didn’t have a prayer after Mayweather started moving around the ring, as he shut the Argentinian fighter down completely, leaving him without a target for him to throw his giant punches.
“There is nobody out there who really has thrown a lot of punches at him, but I’m going to do that,” Pacquiao said. “He is a very good boxer, but I know how to box and I can move side to side and throw punches.”
It sounds like Pacquiao is overlooking Mayweather by assuming that no one has ever thrown a lot of shots against him, and by thinking that he won’t be able to deal with the constant flow of punches. I don’t think Mayweather is going to be awed or rendered helpless by Pacquiao’s high volume punch attack.
Pacquiao’s side to side fighting style is very, very old, and it’s no longer a surprise for anyone he faces, especially a guy like Mayweather. Besides that, Pacquiao is only able to move side to side for short periods of every round, and not for the full three minutes of each round like he used to be able to do.
It’s no secret that Pacquiao develops leg cramps when he tries to move side to side for any length of time. Once the leg cramps set in, Pacquiao become flat-footed, and he then has to plod after his opponents.
For Pacquiao’s sake, I sure hope he has a better plan for the Mayweather fight than him simply coming forward looking to throw a mess of punches. If that’s all Pacquiao’s going to try to do in order to win the fight, then I can see this getting out of hand early with Mayweather totally dominating the 36-year-old Filipino fighter.
Pacquiao needs to have a plan-B, plan-C, Plan-D and a plan-E for him to have a chance of winning this fight, and he’s going to need to be given instructions during the rounds, not at the end of the rounds.
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