By Chris Williams: Since he started training camp with his trusty assistant trainer Buboy Fernandez, Manny Pacquiao says he’s seen a lot of flaws in the shoulder roll defense that Floyd Mayweather Jr employs during his fights, and Pacquiao feels that he’s got the required skills to defeat it.
Just how Pacquiao plans to do that is unknown, because whatever he’s learned on his own or from his trainers likely won’t be enough. Pacquiao struggled in his four fights against Juan Manuel Marquez, and he hasn’t fought a live opponent since being knocked out by Marquez in 2012.
“I think we already have an idea of what offensive maneuvers we would utilize,” Pacquiao said via Philboxing.com. “We will be concentrating on finding the flaws in his defense and I think, too, we’ve discovered a lot. By planning on how to break his defense, we, at the same time, have learned how attack him and score.”
Pacquiao will likely attempt to defeat Mayweather’s shoulder roll defense by throwing a lot of punches and by moving side to side the way he used to do in the past before he started aging. Unfortunately, Pacquiao doesn’t throw a lot of meaningful punches with power now, and he absolutely can’t move side to side any longer for any length of time. Yeah, Pacquiao can occasionally move side to side for a few seconds per round, but he can’t even do it for one minute of every round.
Pacquiao now mainly moves forward and then retreats backwards. He repeats this process over and over again in a predictable fashion in his fights. Marquez was able to figure out Pacquiao easily in their last fight in 2012, and knock him out in the 6th round.
Mayweather’s should roll defense will only be in use when he’s standing still in the pocket against Pacquiao on May 2nd. But since Mayweather likely won’t be fighting in a stationary manner for any length of time, I don’t see Pacquiao being able to take advantage of his defensive stance, even if Pacquiao did have a formula for cracking the code.
Instead of Pacquiao thinking so much about how to penetrate Mayweather’s defense, Pacquiao should be worrying about how he’s going to be able defend himself against Mayweather’s offense. It’s no secret that Pacquiao is sloppy with his offense, and reckless much of the time with the way he attacks his opponents.
Pacquiao has been able to get away with being a sloppy fighter due to the match-making that’s been done for him by his promoter Bob Arum. But things are going to change rapidly when he gets inside the ring with Mayweather on May 2nd, because he’s not a soft touch and he can actually fight.
The fact that Mayweather soundly beat Marquez in 2009, suggests that Pacquiao is going to be in deep, deep trouble when he gets inside the ring with Mayweather. If Mayweather was able to easily beat a fighter who got the better of Pacquiao in their four fights together, it tells you that Pacquiao is going to really struggle in this fight.
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