By Chris Williams: While trainer Freddie Roach has been closely guarding the so-called secret game plan he’s going to have his fighter Manny Pacquiao use on May 2nd against Floyd Mayweather Jr, Roach finally opened his mouth and spilled the beans if you will by revealing the strategy in an interview.
Not surprisingly, the strategy that Roach will have the 36-year-old Pacquiao use in the fight is the exact same one he’s been using for the past 18 years of his career.
Roach says Pacquiao will be using the in and out style of fighting when he gets in there with Mayweather. The difference is that Pacquiao will only be throwing two punches before getting out of the pocket in order to keep from getting nailed by Mayweather’s counter shots.
“It’s really key that we’re in and out of the pocket really quick, because if you stay in the pocket for more than two shots with Mayweather, he’s going to hit you back, ” Roach said about Pacquiao’s fighting strategy for the Mayweather fight in an interview with the Boxing Channel. “He’s [Mayweather] very quick. So you take two shots, get out of the pocket, and make him miss and counter that back again, then you’re going to have some success. The thing is if you stay in the pocket for too long, he’s going to hit you back. That’s something we have to concentrate on.”
Roach doesn’t say how he’s going to keep Pacquiao from getting tagged by Mayweather while he’s coming in, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure that Roach will be telling Pacquiao to attack using angles like he always does. It’ll be nothing new from Pacquiao on that end. We can also expect to see Pacquiao moving his head side to side in order to keep from getting hit, although this will be much less effective because Pacquiao doesn’t move his head nearly enough to keep from getting hit nowadays. He used to be fairly good at avoiding shots with his head movement, but his head is such a large target that Mayweather likely won’t have any problems hitting it.
“I don’t believe in sparring. I know Mayweather said he started already,” Roach said. “He knocked out a couple of girls. The thing is I got a report from one of my friends in Mexico that one of his Mexican boys beat the [expletive] out of him two days in a row. I’ve shown Manny his favorite move he likes to make when he walks you into a shot and Manny knows when to recognize when he’s being setup to take that away. It’s very easy to do. The experience I have from fighting him in the past will help him in this fight. I’m very confident I have the guy to beat this guy. Everyone says the guys undefeated, but remember this guy lost in the Olympics, he lost in the amateurs; he wasn’t the best amateur in the world. He’s tasted defeat before and he’ll taste it again.”
When Roach says that he has the perfect strategy for Pacquiao to negate Mayweather’s favorite move, he doesn’t say what he’ll have Pacquiao do when Mayweather adapts to the moves that Pacquiao makes. Just because Pacquiao is able to stop Mayweather from using one of his favorite moves doesn’t mean that he’s not going to be able to adapt by using something different to get the better of Pacquiao.
You have to wonder who Roach is referring to when he talks about his inside source that is telling him about the Mayweather sparring sessions, because the word is that Mayweather has been dominating his sparring partners since the sparring part of his training camp has started.
Comments are closed.