By Mark Chapman: On the back of Manny Pacquiao’s convincing victory over Joshua Clottey at the weekend, it begs me to wonder if there is anyone out there actually capable of seriously hurting the diminutive Filipino.
Much has been said about Pacquiao’s poor defence and that the likes of Mayweather would destroy him, but when you look at Pacquiao’s recent opponents, namely big strong hitters like Cotto and Clottey, everything those guys have had to offer – which, let’s be honest, did include some sporadic powerful hits, were merely brushed aside with that trademark shake of the head. I remember Cotto’s big right jab, left uppercut combination catching Manny and thinking wow, yet he shook his head, knocked his gloves together and went straight back on the offensive.
Pacquiao has received some unfair criticism following the Clottey fight that he shouldn’t have been hit so many times by the few punches the Ghanaian actually managed to throw, but these people that criticise have to realise that it was par for the course. Clottey clammed up at every opportunity meaning Pacquiao had no option but to go at him, naturally leaving himself vulnerable to the odd Clottey counter. If he didn’t, and elected to defend, imagine what kind of fight we would have had. It was Boxing’s way of ‘speculating to accumulate’ and it was a job well done.
However, we still can’t hide the fact that Clottey did manage to land a few tasty blows – blows which may have been too much for another fighter and at the end of the fight, Pacquiao’s face looked a lot more punished than Clottey’s – which is remarkable when you look at the fight statistics but much less so when you look at the tactics of both fighters. Yet Pacquiao took them all with ease.
This begs the question. With the so called ‘big hitters’ out of the way, who is there left to do what these guys failed so miserably in doing? Putting Pacquiao to the sword…Mayweather? If I’m being completely honest, I just don’t think so. Floyd is no big hitter and I honestly fail to see how he could lay Manny out with one crushing blow. Undoubtedly, that wouldn’t be Mayweather’s tactic on the night, he would defend, duck, cover and counter – hoping that his quick counters would prove too much for Manny over the twelve rounds, but I genuinely feel that the Philipino would be too much even for Floyd. Both fighters are lightning quick and Floyd’s shoulder roll defence is a work of art, but Roach has stated that they have already worked out how to combat that and who would argue with him?
Sure, a clash between these two is what everyone wants to see, it offers everything that the world has arguably never seen before and never will again -‘The Perfect Fight’. Mayweather would cover up, he would have to, there’s no way even he could take a constant battering from Pacquiao – but where Clottey failed so badly, Mayweather certainly wouldn’t. Mayweather would counter Pacquiao much better than Clottey did, and it’s these quick counters that he’s capable of that In my view would take the fight the entire distance and to an extremely close judging decision which Pacquiao would take based on sheer aggression.
Of course I may be running way ahead of myself here, after all, there’s still the small matter of the May 1st Mosley fight to settle yet, but I’m sure that will go as planned resulting in a Mayweather victory culminating in immense pressure to make the Pacquiao fight happen. However, we all know that things are never cut and dried in boxing, especially when it comes to Mayweather, so there is still the very realistic possibility that this fight will never happen, which let’s face it would be a total crime. We can only hope.
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