Pacquiao hoping Mayweather will slug with him on May 2nd

By Boxing News - 04/16/2015 - Comments

pac9By Chris Williams: Since the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight was first signed it seems that Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach have intentially been trying to get under the skin of Mayweather to get him to come out aggressively in their fight on May 2nd in order for him to slug with Pacquiao.

If Mayweather chooses to punch with Pacquiao, and fight his fight, it gives the 36-year-old Filipino fighter his best chance of winning. As much as you want to say this as an even fight, it’s really not even fight if Mayweather chooses to box the shorter Pacquiao for the entire 12 rounds when they get inside the ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Pacquiao is the naturally smaller fighter, and he needs Mayweather to make the mistake of giving up his height and reach by standing still for him for most of the fight. That’s why it was interesting to see Pacquiao come out and just admit that he needs Mayweather to slug with him for him to do well on May 2nd. Pacquiao flat out admitted it.

“If he (does) that, that’s good for me,” Pacquiao said via Philstar.com. “I like that. We’ll see. That’s what I want, and that’s definitely what the fans want — action.”

I don’t think Mayweather is going to accommodate Pacquiao by fighting his fight, especially given that he knows that he needs him to slug for him to have a chance of winning. If Mayweather wasn’t willing to stand in the pocket in his last fight against Marcos Maidana last September, then it’s doubtful that he’s going to want to slug with Pacquiao, who is aggressive much like Maidana but not quite as good at pressuring as him.

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Maidana gave Mayweather problems in their first fight in May of 2014 when Mayweather stood and traded with him rather than using movement to clown him. But Maidana’s size, strength, weight and his ability to pressure Mayweather is arguably superior to Pacquiao and the way he can pressure Mayweather. The only department that Pacquiao is better than Maidana is in the speed department. In all the other areas, Maidana is better than Pacquiao. For that reason I don’t see Pacquiao giving Mayweather giving any problems on May 2nd with his pressure unless Mayweather decides that he’s going to stand and just trade with him like he did in the first Maidana fight.

“Reckless fighter? That’s how people like me and love me, because they like an exciting fight,” Pacquiao said. “We call this boxing, (and) boxing is more punching. We talk about punching.”

Mayweather had previously analyzed Pacquiao’s fighting style, in particular the one that he used in his last fight against Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012, and deemed him a “reckless fighter” due to his aggressive fighting style. Mayweather feels that Pacquiao’s style doesn’t use much in the way of thought, and he sees it as the opposite of his own analytical style of fighting.

With Pacquiao’s statement above about how “people like me and love me, because they like an exciting fight,” he is defending his “reckless” fighting style by suggesting that fans enjoy it. What Pacquiao may not be aware of is that it doesn’t matter how exciting you are as a fighter, it’s not necessarily going to help you beat the better fighters in boxing. Sluggers are a dime a dozen in boxing, but they frequently come up short when fighting a smart fighter that knows how to move around the ring, counter punch and defend against the slugger’s wild shots.

It doesn’t matter how much the boxing fans love Pacquiao’s fighting style, if he’s not able to handle Mayweather’s defensive style of fighting on May 2nd, then he’s going to get a boxing lesson in front of the entire world. It might make Pacquiao feel better afterwards to talk about how the boxing fans love his style of fighting, but it won’t change the fact that he lost the fight to Mayweather and came up second best.



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