Mayweather has a good chance of knocking Pacquiao out, Roy Jones Jr said

By Boxing News - 04/07/2015 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: Roy Jones Jr. thinks Floyd Mayweather Jr. has a better chance of scoring a knockout over his opponent Manny Pacquiao than Pacquiao has of knocking Mayweather out in their fight on May 2nd. Jones Jr sees Mayweather as having a good chance of taking over the fight early if he can get his jab established.

Jones questions whether Pacquiao will be able to get to Mayweather to land his big shots in the fight. However, Jones does believe that Pacquiao could find himself ahead in the fight if it goes the full 12 rounds.

Whether Pacquiao is given the decision by the judges is another thing, Jones says. He notes that Pacquiao lost a questionable decision to Tim Bradley in their first fight in 2012, so he thinks that Pacquiao will be more at risk of losing by a controversial decision than Mayweather.

“A fighter like Mayweather doesn’t have to change up his style,” Jones said via Hoopjab. “He’s not going it [lifting weights] to change up his style. He’s depending on a different set of tools. When you got a full took box like Floyd got, you go to get the tools that you need for the job. So what Floyd’s doing is going and taking the tools that he thinks will be necessary to deal with Pacquiao. I don’t think he’ll [Mayweather] struggle early. He just has to go out and get his jab established early. In this fight he got something to win so it’s different.”

Jones is dead on correct in pointing out that Mayweather has more tools in his tool box to beat Pacquiao than Pacquiao does at trying to beat him. Mayweather can use a variety of tools to get the job done against the 36-year-old Pacquiao on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Jones talks about Mayweather working on his punching power. He thinks that’s just one of the different tools that Mayweather will use for this particular fight. Jones doesn’t think Mayweather’s fighting style will change for the Pacquiao fight, just the tools that he employs.

Mayweather doesn’t normally go looking for knockouts nowadays like he did earlier in his career, but for this fight he seems to be taking a different approach by working on his punching power with the help of his high profile strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza. The two of them have been working hard at developing more strength, and Mayweather is said to be showing a lot of progress in terms of having more punching power now.

“I don’t think Floyd should be worried at all,” Jones said. “Floyd just has to do what Floyd does. Manny has to be worried about that [the judges]. They robbed him against Tim Bradley in a clear robbery, so he’s the one who has to worry about a bad decision, not Floyd Mayweather. If the fight goes 12 rounds, Pacquiao has a chance of being ahead at 12 rounds. But if Floyd can hurt him early, because that’s something Floyd can do, it won’t be a problem. But to me, Floyd will be the boxer, and Pacquiao will be the puncher. Floyd can be whatever way he wants to be, because he has the most tools.”

Pacquiao obviously still has good power at 36 despite the fact that he hasn’t knocked anyone out in the last six years of his career. However, the question is will Pacquiao be able to land his shots against an elusive fighter like Mayweather. Pacquiao has never been a one-punch type of a fighter. He’s the type that needs to bludgeon his opponents into submission over the course of his fights.

Even if Pacquiao is fighting a stationary guy, he still needs to take many rounds before he eventually knocks them out. But against a fighter like Mayweather, Pacquiao is going to have a ton of problems landing more than one punch at a time. He’s obviously not going to be able to knock Mayweather out if he can only land one shot at a time.

“In a fight like this, Floyd has the best chance of knocking Pacquiao out and winning the fight,” Jones said. “Pacquiao has a better chance of making it a long fight, and trying to knock Floyd out, but we don’t know for a fact that he can get to Floyd.”



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