By Chris Williams: WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. weighed in at 150.5 pounds in his 30-day weigh-in for his fight against the Philippine’s Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was obviously Mayweather’s natural weight and not a case of him draining down to make the 30-day weight like some fighters clearly do.
Pacquiao is likely to come into the Mayweather fight weighing in the low 140s. It’s doubtful that Pacquiao will be close to 147 for the fight. But even if he does weigh close to the same amount as Mayweather, it’s still going to be very difficult for Pacquiao to be able to handle the speed, movement and reach that Mayweather has. That’s more important than weight for this fight.
Of course, if Pacquiao were to be fighting a 170+ pound fighter like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez rather than Mayweather, then the weight would be very important. But I don’t think Pacquiao would agree to fight Canelo without a handicap as far as a catch-weight goes, and possibly a rehydration limit.
Pacquiao is reportedly been given the day off in his training by Freddie Roach because the 55-year-old trainer is worried about Pacquiao overtraining for the fight. There is only 24 days left to go before the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, and Roach doesn’t want Pacquiao to overdo before he gets inside the ring with Mayweather.
Pacquiao went on a run at the Pan Pacific park on Tuesday, and his publicist Fred Sternburg said it was “a good run and a fast-paced,” in comments to the New Standard/Boxingmirror.com. Roach “wants to hold him back. Freddie doesn’t want to leave the fight in the gym.”
Besides his boxing training, Pacquiao has been doing a lot of running to build up his endurance. Roach has been saying that Pacquiao hasn’t had any flare ups with his leg cramps lately. While that’s good news that Pacquiao isn’t cramping up, it doesn’t mean that he won’t cramp up in the fight with Mayweather on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Running at a leisurely pace in training is a completely different animal than having to move around the ring quickly for three minutes of every round for 12 long rounds. We could see Pacquiao cramp up badly against Mayweather in this fight. If that happens, Mayweather is going to have Pacquiao at his mercy, and will be able to dominate him with his fast shots.
Pacquiao has two new sparring partners that he’ll be sparring this week. The names of the fighters are unknown, and it’s likely that Roach won’t reveal who they are to keep them from being snatched away from him by Mayweather’s camp. However, it’s going to be hard to disguise who the fighters are because they’ll still need to come into the back door of Roach’s Wild Card gym in Los Angles. Once they climb the steps to begin working out during one of Pacquiao’s sessions, boxing fans will then know who they are.
Roach wants to see how his game plan is working for the Mayweather fight. That’s why he wants to have Pacquiao spar this week to see how well it’s going. At the end of the day, it’s not likely Pacquiao will be fighting any different than he has in the past.
If you look at how Pacquiao fought Chris Algieri last November by putting a lot of pressure on him the entire fight, it’s likely that’s how Pacquiao will fight Mayweather. That’s how Pacquiao has always fought during his entire career.
Roach likes to make it sound so mysterious in talking about his secret game plan, but the reality is that we’re going to see Pacquiao fight the same way he always does. He absolutely has to pressure Mayweather constantly for him to have a chance of winning the fight, so there’s really no secret game plan that Pacquiao can use that will be any different than the ones he’s always used.
About the only thing different that Pacquiao can try to do is maybe get a little closer to Mayweather than he usually does in his fights, and try and literally smother Mayweather so that he can get away from Pacquiao. If you look at how Marcus Maidana fought Mayweather in their first fight by smothering him in close and not letting him get away from him, it could be the strategy that Pacquiao and Roach will use for the Mayweather fight. That would be a different type of fight strategy for Pacquiao compared to how he normally fights.
I don’t think it’s going to work, but it would definitely be a different strategy for Pacquiao. He normally uses in and out attacks to get the better of his opponents. It’s worked against every opponent he’s had except Juan Manuel Marquez in their four fights, and Tim Bradley in their first fight. But if Pacquiao smothers Mayweather, then the fight could turn into an inside war with both fighters trading. I don’t think Pacquiao is a very good inside fighter.
We saw Pacquiao struggle against Joshua Clottey in their fight in 2010, and Pacquiao didn’t look that great in his fight against Miguel Cotto when the Puerto Rican fighter took the action to the inside. Even Antonio Margarito gave Pacquiao a lot of problems in their fight in 2010 when he fought Pacquiao on the inside. I don’t think Pacquiao can evolve enough in one training camp for him to be able to compete with Mayweather on the inside. Unless you’ve been fighting on the inside your entire career, you’re not going to be able to suddenly start fighting on the inside and doing well with that style.
Pacquiao has been doing a lot of sparring with former UFC fighter Dashon Johnson and Kenneth Sims, both of which took the fight to Pacquiao. Neither guy has the kind of talent that Mayweather has, so the value of that sparring is unclear. Can help Pacquiao? I’m not so sure. I think it’ll help him with his conditioning, but not in terms of helping Pacquiao improve enough to beat Mayweather.
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