By Eric Thomas: The ole Nostradamus Freddie Roach has come up with the perfect plan on how to beat Floyd Mayweather Jr., namely by attacking Mayweather’s body and breaking him down, Roach says in an article by writer David Tyler at Doghouse Boxing. Roach, the famous trainer for pound for pound boxer Manny Pacquiao, is looking forward to a future fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao and is already calculating a way for Pacquiao to beat the undefeated Mayweather.
Roach sees several vulnerabilities that Mayweather has, starting with his body. Mayweather was recently suffered a rib injury during training for his fight with Juan Manuel Marquez. Although Mayweather won’t say who or what caused the injury, the speculation is that Mayweather got hit hard to the body and was injured from it.
In the past, Mayweather has had problems fighting opponents that attacked him hard to the body and ignored his head. This was the case against Jose Luis Castillo, who fought Mayweather very closely in two losing efforts in 2002. In both fights, Castillo went after Mayweather’s body and made it very close in the end. Many people feel that Castillo won the first fight, but was given a bad decision against the more popular Mayweather.
Since that fight, Mayweather has only faced a couple of good body punches in Arturo Gatti and Ricky Hatton, but in post cases, Mayweather picked them apart with short, precise counter punches to stop them. Obviously, what Roach fails to point out is that it takes more than a fighter focusing on body punching to beat a fighter as talented as Mayweather.
If someone thinks it’s that easy to beat him, they’re going to be sadly mistaken. It takes skills, movement and defense to avoid Mayweather’s short punches. Mayweather is able to generate a lot of power in his short shots and has knockout power in his left hook. Hatton found that out the hard way when he was nailed by a check hook and taken out by Mayweather in 2007.
Roach thinks that pressure will be the key to Pacquiao beating May weather – pressure and speed. Roach goes one step further in his confidence about Pacquiao beating Mayweather by saying that Floyd will be an “easier opponent than Cotto, Mosley or even Marquez.”
I doubt Roach is serious about that, because Cotto seems like a shell of his former self after his beating by Antonio Margarito last year and it’s hard to see him being a better opponent than the undefeated Mayweather.
I agree with Roach that pressure will be a problem for Mayweather, but if Pacquiao focuses exclusively on throwing to the body and ignoring Mayweather’s head, Pacquiao will be picked apart my Mayweather. While Castillo was able to get away with attacking Mayweather to the body, I doubt that Pacquiao will be able to have the same kind of success.
Castillo was a skilled body puncher and knew exactly how to move his head to avoid Mayweather’s shots while getting in his body shots. Pacquiao has always been a head hunter and if he tried to imitate Castillo’s earlier success against Mayweather, he’ll be knocked out and humiliated by Mayweather.
It takes a long time to get good at body punching and to learn how to throw the shots without getting clobbered like Castillo. Pacquiao probably won’t be good enough to get away with it against a skilled fighter like Mayweather, so I hope for his sake he doesn’t blindly follow Roach’s instructions.
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