Floyd can stop Pacquiao, I’ll be shocked if it’s close, Malignaggi said

By Boxing News - 04/19/2015 - Comments

Floyd Mayweather Work Out for the PressBy Chris Williams: The opinions on the upcoming Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight are many. Some boxing fans see Pacquiao winning the fight by a knockout in a one-sided fight, whereas other fans believe that Mayweather will simply be too talented for the much shorter 5’6” Pacquiao to deal with.

Showtime analyst Paulie Malignaggi is one of those people who see Mayweather as being far too good for Pacquiao, and having no problems beating him on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Malignaggi says he sees the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight as being a one-sided affair with Mayweather possibly getting a knockout. In fact, Malignaggi says he’d be very surprised if the fight is competitive at all. The reason why Malignaggi feels this way is because of how Pacquiao leaves himself open so often when he bull rushes his opponents while jumping in and out to try and land his punches.

Malignaggi also notes that Pacquiao was beaten by Juan Manuel Marquez in the past, and this is the same fighter that Mayweather took to school in 2009 in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision.

“To a degree, it’s going to define them in some ways. It’s going to cause some kind of judgment to be cast on their legacies,” Malignaggi said about the outcome of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight via Fighthype. “I’ll be shocked if the fight’s close. Floyd can stop him. It depends on when he’ll step on the gas. It’ll depend on the aggressiveness in the second six rounds, because the first six rounds will be a more tactical fight for Floyd,” Malignaggi said.

Pacquiao probably going to force Mayweather to mix it up with him in the first six rounds whether he wants to or not. Obviously Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach have been working hard at cutting off the ring against mobile fighters that are much younger than the 38-year-old Floyd.

If Pacquiao hasn’t learned how to cut off the ring against guys that are in their mid-20s, then he surely won’t have a chance of doing that against the real thing when he gets inside the ring with Mayweather on May 2nd. But I suspect that Pacquiao will be able to cut off the ring and force Mayweather into a lot of exchanges in the first six rounds of the fight.

Instead of this playing in Pacquiao’s favor, I think he’s going to take a lot of punishment and wind up getting cut and possibly stunned by Mayweather’s lightning quick lancing blows. I believe this is going to be very similar to the Mayweather vs. Victor Ortiz fight in 2011 in which Mayweather walked Ortiz down and punished him with pinpoint shots.

It got so bad that Ortiz finally lost his cool and head-butted Mayweather in the 4th round. The rest is history. Ortiz had a point deducted by the referee, and Mayweather turned around and knocked Ortiz out. If Pacquiao loses his cool on May 2nd when/if the fight gets out of hand, then Mayweather will be calm and will punish him with shots and likely score a knockout at that point.

I do think Malignaggi is correct about Mayweather hurting Pacquiao and scoring a knockout in the 2nd half of the fight.



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