Sergio Martinez: Pacquiao is a long way from being ready for Mayweather

By Boxing News - 03/23/2015 - Comments

pacBy Chris Williams: Former two division world champion Sergio Martinez doesn’t think Top Rank fighter Manny Pacquiao is ready for what he’s about to undertake on May 2nd when he gets inside the ring with Floyd Mayweather Jr at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Martinez, 40, sees Pacquiao someone that Mayweather can beat with ease in this fight. Martinez doesn’t rate Pacquiao as being a good enough fighter to compete with Mayweather right now.

“This was never too much of a fight to me because Mayweather is in a league of his own,” said Martinez via RingTV.com. “Floyd Mayweather can have Manny for breakfast, lunch or anything. Pacquiao is still a long way from being ready for Mayweather.”

Martinez has a brilliant mind, and you can’t disagree with him with his analysis of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Yes, Martinez’s body may be failing him at the age of 40, but his mind is still as sharp as a tack. He knows what he sees when he looks at Pacquiao and Mayweather. This is why he doesn’t give Pacquiao a chance of winning the fight.

Martinez feels that Mayweather’s boxing skills are going to be too much for Pacquiao to handle in this fight. Unless Mayweather decides to give Pacquiao a handicap by choosing to slug with him, it could be a really long night for Pacquiao on May 2nd with him getting dominated.

There’s no question that Pacquiao doesn’t have the boxing skills right now to compete against Mayweather. Pacquiao is a small slugger who has been able to prolong his career in recent years dining on the guys that his promoter Bob Arum has been picking out for him.

Instead of Pacquiao facing hard opponents that would likely age him badly such Marcos Maidana, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Kell Brook, Danny Garcia and Lucas Matthysse, Pacquiao has been fighting Chris Algieri, Brandon Rios, Tim Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez, Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey.

Pacquiao is arguably the wrong kind of fighter to be taking on Mayweather, because he doesn’t have the boxing skills or the size to stand up to what he’s going to be facing in the ring with the talented American fighter.

Pacquiao is just a straight up slugger in the Arturo Gatti mold, and we already saw what Mayweather did to Gatti when he stopped him in the 6th round in their fight in June 2005.

Gatti has the same size and fighting style as Pacquiao, but it didn’t help him at all. Mayweather was able to tee off on Gatti, and take advantage of his slugging fighting style.

At this point it’s perhaps too late for Pacquiao to change his fighting style to give him a better chance of winning the fight against Mayweather. The wheel is already in notion, and it’s going to be next to impossible for Pacquiao to add another level to his game.

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Sluggers are rarely able to adapt to become boxers. When you have a small slugger with limited height and advanced age, it’s pretty much impossible to change that fighter into a boxer/puncher.



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