By Dan Ambrose: According to knockout victim Dierry Jean (29-2, 20 KOs), Manny Pacquiao is both faster and hits harder than WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (27-0, 19 KOs), who scored a 10th round TKO last Saturday night over Jean on HBO from the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
The 33-year-old Jean recently worked as a sparring partner for Pacquiao to help him get ready for his May 2nd fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. earlier this year. During the sparring sessions with Pacquiao, the 5’6” Jean got to know how good he is and what he’s still capable of doing.
You have to remember that this was Pacquiao sparring with an injured right shoulder, which according to his promoter Bob Arum, he had for quite some time. If Pacquiao is 100 percent healed from his shoulder surgery on his torn right rotator cuff, then a fight between him and Terence Crawford could be a lot like his fight against the long-armed Chris Algieri. It might be a really easy fight for Pacquiao, especially if Crawford loses his head and tries to nail Pacquiao with shots each time he gets tagged hard by him. Crawford seems to lack discipline in the ring, and you can’t be undisciplined against a fighter like Pacquiao. The only guys that have beaten Pacquiao in recent years were the intelligent fighters Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez.
“Manny is faster and hits harder,” Jean said ESPN.com.
I think the only way that Crawford could beat Pacquiao is if he scored a knockout over him. I don’t see Crawford being able to outpoint Pacquiao because he’s considerably slower than him, and he doesn’t have the punching power or the accuracy to get the job done. I had Crawford trailing in the first six rounds in his fights against Thomas Dulorme, Breidis Prescott and Yuriorkis Gamboa. He’s easy to hit, and he doesn’t throw a lot of punches.
Pacquiao would likely build up an insurmountable lead through eight rounds, and that would put Crawford into a situation where he would need to fight with desperation and shoot for the knockout. You don’t want to be desperate against a fighter like Pacquiao because he’ll take advantage of that by nailing you with big shots.
The major negative about Crawford is that he fights with anger rather than intelligence. When he gets hit, he tends to immediately try and respond to pay back his opponents by mixing it up with them.
Crawford seems to lose his senses completely by trying to put out when he gets nailed. He’s not like Floyd Mayweather Jr., who seems to fight smarter after he gets nailed. Crawford does the opposite by going primitive by looking to retaliate with hard shots of his own. The thing is if he does with Pacquiao, he’s going to be fighting his fight all night, because Pacquiao loves to fight brawlers, especially ones like Crawford that leave themselves open for big shots.
Crawford out-landed Jean 3 to 1 last night in connecting on 169 of 533 punches for a connect percentage of 32 percent, according to CompuBox. For his part, Jean connected on 51 of 340 punches for a 15 percent connect percentage. Jean could have landed more punches, but he seemed to lose his nerve after being dropped in the 1st round by a counter right hand by Crawford.
“Just watch it and see,” Crawford said last night about what will happen in a fight against Pacquiao. “I’m ready for Pacquiao. All I need is a phone call.”
HBO analyst Max Kellerman got Crawford really excited last night when interviewing him when he said that he’s the guy that is being talked about for Pacquiao’s next fight. Kellerman was just speculating though, because he doesn’t know who Pacquiao will be fighting next. All he knows is the rumor mill stuff and that Bob Arum would like Pacquiao to face Crawford. It’s up to Pacquiao to make the decision on his own who he wants to fight. His adviser Michael Koncz should try and give him some sound advice so that Pacquiao doesn’t wind up losing money by fighting someone who can’t bring in PPV buys.
If Pacquiao is going to be fighting Crawford next, it could wind up being an easier one for him than a fight against Amir Khan, who would be circling the ring and avoiding getting into any wars with Pacquiao.
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