Roach: Pacquiao will KO Mayweather in the later rounds

By Boxing News - 03/02/2015 - Comments

roach444By Chris Williams: It’s only been a short while since the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr fight negotiations were completed, and already Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach is predicting a knockout victory for the 36-year-old Filipino fighter.

Roach sees Pacquiao knocking Mayweather out “in the late rounds,” according to scmp.com. Pacquiao hasn’t scored a knockout in over six years, yet Roach still sees Pacquiao knocking Mayweather out.

If Pacquiao does get a knockout, it would definitely surprise a lot of people, because Pacquiao’s power seems to have disappeared over the years.

“The main goal is to beat them anyway we can,” Roach said. “Manny is fresher and stronger.”

I’m not sure that you can say that Pacquiao is fresher than Mayweather. If you look at all the way that Pacquiao was knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012, with Pacquiao getting knocked clean out in the 6th round, I don’t see him being the fresher of the two fighters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K21ee-RRik

Pacquiao has taken a lot of head shots during his career in his fights against Erik Morales, Marquez, Antonio Margarito, and Marco Antonio Barrera. This was just in the second half of Pacquiao’s career.

In the first half, Pacquiao was constantly getting nailed y big power shots before he learned to defend himself. You can’t look at those fights and compare them to any of Mayweather’s and say that Pacquiao is the fresher of the two fighters.

Pacquiao’s punching power is possibly a little bit better than Mayweather’s, but not by a lot. The only difference between them really is that Pacquiao tends to throw a lot of combinations, whereas Mayweather throws a lot of single shots.

“I studied him [Mayweather] quite a bit. He’s a good fighter, don’t get me wrong, but he’s a bit boring,” Roach said. “We have to dictate the pace of the fight; we have to throw more punches. He’s very defensive.”

When Roach says “we have to throw more punches,” he’s basically giving away the game plan for Pacquiao on May 2nd. Roach has been highly secretive about the style that Mayweather plans on using for fight, but it seems pretty clear from what Roach is saying that he plans on having Pacquiao overwhelm Mayweather with punches.

This is the old game plan that Roach has been talking about for the past six years. He thinks that the best way for Pacquiao to beat Mayweather is for him to attack him nonstop and throw a high volume of punches. Unfortunately, that plan only works against fighters that stand in one place so that Pacquiao can get his shots off.

If Mayweather is willing to stay perfectly still like Joshua Clottey and Brandon Rios did in their fights against Pacquiao. Mayweatehr isn’t stupid enough to fight with that kind of game plan, because that’s a recipe for losing.

Mayweather is obviously going to show movement and use Pacquiao’s sloppy fighting style against him by picking him off each time he comes lunging forward.

I don’t think Pacquiao will ever come close to scoring a knockout in this fight. Pacquiao can’t put enough punches together to score knockouts, and his power seems to have dissipated overnight since his KOs dried up back in 2009.



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