Roach: If Mayweather doesn’t step up his game, Pacquiao will destroy him

By Boxing News - 04/24/2015 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: Freddie Roach says that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is going to be in a position where he’s going to need to try and match Manny Pacquiao’s high work rate or else he’s going to be destroyed by him on May 2nd.

Roach isn’t worried about Pacquiao being a reckless fighter. He thinks that’s what the fans want to see. That’s all well and good if that style works on Mayweather, but I don’t think it will.

That’s why Pacquiao needs to tidy up his fighting style and become better at his craft by 5/2 or else he’s going to get clowned by Mayweather.

What’s really interesting is that Roach still has the belief that Pacquiao can beat Mayweather by overwhelming him with punches. This is the same belief that Roach had six years ago when he was talking day after day about how the way for Pacquiao to defeat Mayweather’s fighting style was to bum rush him and throw nonstop punches for 12 rounds.

We saw Pacquiao do that against a stationary fighter in Joshua Clottey in their fight in 2010. However, we soon discovered that Pacquiao’s high punch volume doesn’t work when he’s fighting a mobile fighter like Tim Bradley. In their first fight, Bradley was able to shut Pacquiao’s offense down to a trickle by using just a little bit of movement to foil him. In that fight, Bradley showed the blue print in how to beat Pacquiao staying in motion and not letting him have a target for his flurries.

roach11111“That’s why [Pacquiao’s] so exciting, because he’s reckless,” said Roach. “And if [Floyd] doesn’t step up and match that, we’re going to destroy him,” Roach said via sports.inquirer.net.

Like with his thoughts about Pacquiao’s high punch output being the great master plan to beat Mayweather, Roach also thinks Pacquiao’s side to side movement will have Mayweather totally confused in how to defeat it. But to be honest, Pacquiao’s side to side movement isn’t what it used to be six to ten years ago. He’s no longer hard to hit when he uses the movement because he’s lot slower with his feet than he was before.

“Manny’s side-to-side will keep him guessing,” said Roach.

Roach is hoping that Mayweather will fight with his back against the ropes like he did against Robert Guerrero and Marcos Maidana. Roach sees that as an opportunity for Pacquiao to overwhelm Mayweather with punches. The thing is Mayweather didn’t use that style in his second fight against Maidana last September. He realized that he wouldn’t have any luck if he tries that tactic again so he abandoned it. But it’s not surprising that Roach is holding out hope that Mayweather will elect to fight with that style against Pacquiao rather than using another tactic. Roach doesn’t give Mayweather very much credit to think that he’ll fight like that against Pacquiao. It just shows you that Roach is greatly underestimating Mayweather’s talent and his ability to adapt.

“We’d like to get him on the ropes. His legs are a little bit older and if he goes to the ropes with Manny, I’d love that,” Roach said.



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