Maidana picks Mayweather to defeat Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 04/30/2015 - Comments

maidana8By Dan Ambrose: Argentinian knockout artist Marcos Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) is picking WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (47-0, 26 KOs) to defeat WBO welterweight champ Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) in their fight this Saturday.

Maidana likes Mayweather’s hand speed and intelligence as being factors in him beating Pacquiao. Maidana sees Mayweather as being the smarter fighter compared to the 36-year-old Pacquiao, and he also doesn’t think Pacquiao has looked that great lately despite the fact that he’s won his last three fights against Chris Algieri, Tim Bradley and Brandon Rios.

“I think Mayweather is going to win because he’s faster, he’s smarter,” Maidana said via esnewsreporting.com. “On the other hand, Pacquiao didn’t really look that good lately. So I have Mayweather.”

Mayweather is a very smart fighter, and it’s going to be difficult for Pacquiao to match his wits in the ring. Pacquiao isn’t known for him being someone who outthinks his opponents. He’s more of the type who outworks and out-slugs his opposition.

Maidana is coming off of back to back defeats at the hands of Mayweather so he’s well aware of what Mayweather is capable of doing. Maidana came close to beating Mayweather in their first fight last year in May. Mayweather decided to stay with his back against the ropes for much of the fight to see if he could wear Maidana down, but it didn’t work for Mayweather because Maidana was able to keep throwing a lot of punches into the second half of the fight.

This led to Mayweather getting off of the ropes and using movement to get the better of Maidana in the second half of the bout. Mayweather realized after that fight that he couldn’t use the same style in a second fight. Last September, Mayweather defeated Maidana a second time, but he was a lot more mobile this time and was able to win fairly easily.

Pacquiao needs to show that he can switch his fighting style because if his original game plan doesn’t work for him, he’ll have to come up with some other ideas for him to have a chance of being victorious in this fight.

Pacquiao looked pretty good against Rios, Algieri and Bradley. Granted, Pacquiao wasn’t as fast or as explosive as he was during his best years, but he was still close enough to his prime to where he was able to win easily. He did the job on those fighters and showed that they didn’t belong in the same ring with him, especially Rios and Algieri. Those guys were hopefully outclassed by Pacquiao.



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