By Chris Williams: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is saying that the smart money will be on his former conquer Floyd Mayweather Jr. to defeat Filipino star Manny Pacquiao this Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
De La Hoya notes that Mayweather lives in Las Vegas, his picture is on the outside of the MGM Grand hotel and casino, and he’s almost impossible to knockout. De La Hoya thinks that Mayweather will win the close rounds against Pacquiao. De Hoya says it’s big business.
If Mayweather is able to get a lead over Pacquiao, he’s going to be tough to beat, De La Hoya said to the LA Times. Mayweather fights well going backwards.
“The smart money is on Mayweather,” De La Hoya said via the latimes.com. “Look, it’s Las Vegas, Mayweather’s hometown. His picture is on the side of the MGM. The close rounds are going to go to Mayweather. It’s big business. It’s no secret.”
I don’t buy it. The better man will win the fight on Saturday night, be it Mayweather or Pacquiao. The judges aren’t going to automatically give Mayweather all the close rounds just because he has his face on the outside of the MGM Grand, and that he lives in Vegas and helps bring a lot of money to the city each time he fights. I don’t believe that at all. Before Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum started staging his fights in Macau, China following Pacquiao’s knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marque in 2012, Pacquiao had been fighting most of his fights in Las Vegas during the past six years. The only interruption to the routine was when Arum twice had Pacquiao fight in Texas at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington in 2010, but Arum stopped doing that for some reason.
“If Pacquiao can surprise him in the first two or three rounds and get Mayweather where he has to catch him and come from behind, then it can be a very interesting fight,” De La Hoya said. That has to be Pacquiao’s plan.”
Starting off fast is obviously Pacquiao’s plan. He does that anyway, but his trainer Freddie Roach has been talking about wanting to do that, and even former heavyweight champion George Foreman is predicting that Pacquiao will attempt to accomplish that. I don’t know if he can, but I think Pacquiao is going to try hard to make that happen. We might even see a knockout in the first two rounds if Pacquiao tried a little too hard to win those rounds.
It seems like when Pacquiao is being encouraged by Roach to go out and fight aggressively, he forgets himself and walks into shots. If Pacquiao tries too hard to win the first two rounds against Mayweather, he might be sorry for having done so. It would be smarter for Pacquiao to keep his head and fight under control. If he can win the rounds while not getting hit, then he should do it. But if Pacquiao starts getting nailed by Mayweather early on, he needs to back off and realize that it might not be smart to use up all his resources trying to capture the early rounds.
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