Khan thinks Pacquiao could beat Mayweather – News

By Boxing News - 09/28/2009 - Comments

mayweather34234342By Manuel Perez: For what it’s worth, World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan thinks that Manny Pacquiao can beat Floyd Mayweather in the future, according to the Telegraph.co. “I think Manny [Pacquiao] might take the fight with his speed,” Khan said. However, the opinion doesn’t have much weight as far as I’m concerned because Khan, after all, does train with Pacquiao and has the same trainer Freddie Roach. It’s not like Khan’s a neutral observer or anything, like me.

I guess if I was training with Pacquiao a lot, I’d say the same thing to keep things nice between us. Can you imagine how Pacquiao would take it if Khan suddenly said, “Mayweather will absolutely destroy Pacquiao without any problems.”

As for Khan’s comment on Pacquiao’s speed being the important factor in Pacquiao being able to beat Mayweather, I think Khan is ignoring Mayweather’s speed. I see Mayweather as being the faster fighter, with the better power and the much better defense.

The speed that Pacquiao has is neutralized by Mayweather’s quick hands. Speed is good when one fighter has a big advantage over the other, but that’s not the case in a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. So, I have to ignore Khan’s comments about Pacquiao’s speed being something that will enable him to beat Mayweather. Besides that, Pacquiao will be losing to Miguel Cotto on November 14th, so a fight against Mayweather won’t even be needed.

Khan says, “A lot of people forget that speed is power. You can’t take it away from Mayweather, who is a fast fighter. But when you take speed, with amount of punches you throw – Manny throws a lot of punches with speed, whereas Mayweather is more a single-shot fighter.”

Mayweather doesn’t need to throw a lot of punches like Pacquiao, because he’s got more power and size. It’ll take Pacquiao more punches to equal one shot from Mayweather. Plus, Mayweather doesn’t need to throw a lot of shots because he’s so good at making his opponents. Let other fighters throw wasteful punches. Mayweather gets the same job done with far fewer shots.

Pacquiao throws a lot of shots but they’re the wild type and half the time, he misses by a mile with them. Mayweather is much more accurate with his pin point punches. If it were up to me, I’d rather fight Pacquiao with his weaker combinations than Mayweather with his hard single shots.

Khan – “I would say the fight looks 60% towards Manny’s favor, and he’s been more active, in the ring more.” Active means nothing when a fighter is facing lesser opposition. The last good fight that Pacquiao had was against Juan Manuel Marquez last year in March, and a lot of people think that Pacquiao lost the fight. There wasn’t rematch after this and Pacquiao went on and fought an old Oscar De La Hoya and then Ricky Hatton.

If Pacquiao really wanted to prove something, he should have fought Timothy Bradley rather than Hatton and Paul Williams or Shane Mosley instead of De La Hoya. I’d be the first to give Pacquiao credit if he fought Mosley, Williams or Bradley. I don’t think he’s win for a second, but I’d give Pacquiao credit for having the courage to fight the absolute best and not shot fighters or ones that really aren’t at the top anymore.

Hatton would have been a good choice for Pacquiao to fight in 2006, before Hatton was destroyed by Mayweather. After that, I consider it a waste of time to have fought Hatton because he was no longer fighting the fighters that I consider the best in the light welterweight division. Paulie Malignaggi might be ranked in the top 15 in the light welterweight class, but I don’t consider him in the class of Bradley, Kendall Holt, Devon Alexander and some of the other harder punching fighters.



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