By Esteban Garduno: For what it’s worth, Joshua Clottey believes that Manny Pacquiao would give unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. a lot of problems if the two were eve to fight. In an article at the Philippine Star, Clottey says “To be frank with you, the fight [Mayweather vs. Pacquiao] will be very tough for Mayweather. Pacquiao is very fast and he keeps on throwing punches. Mayweather doesn’t throw too much, so Manny will give him problems, lot’s of problems.” That may might be, but Mayweather is a lot better at moving than Clottey proved to be last Saturday night.

It’s easy to get hit with punches when you spend 99% of the fight just standing and covering up like Clottey did against Pacquiao. In hindsight, that was a really poor strategy that Clottey used in the fight against Pacquiao. Mayweather won’t fight like that against Pacquiao. He’ll move constantly, make Pacquiao follow him around the ring and pick Pacquiao off with big shots.

The worst thing that a fighter can do against an opponent that likes to throw a ton of punches like Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito is stand directly in front of them, not move and just cover up. That was basically a suicidal plan by Clottey from the first second he employed that. The thing of it is Freddie Roach, the trainer for Pacquiao, knew Clottey was going to fight that way going into the bout. Roach even said what Clottey was going to do in the fight.

And sure enough, that’s exactly what Clottey did. He covered up, moved little, spent time on the ropes covering up and basically presenting himself as a stationary target for Pacquiao for 12 rounds. Clottey should have come up with a strategy to use and employed it instead of using what he’s been doing in the past and failing miserably at it. Clottey said before the fight that he doesn’t like to watch video of his opponents.

However, had Clottey at least watched the bout between Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto, he would have seen the HUGE problems that Pacquiao had anytime that Cotto moved a little. Let’s be clear about this: Cotto is not good at moving around the ring, yet he had Pacquiao looking really limited anytime he did move. Pacquiao wasn’t landing when Cotto was moving.

Clottey is right that Pacquiao would cause Mayweather a lot of problems with his high volume work rate. However, that’s only if Mayweather stupid enough to just cover up with a clamshell defense all night long, not move and barely throw punches. That’s a recipe for losing, and it’s sad that Clottey appeared to make no changes to his style of fighting whatsoever for the Pacquiao fight.

I don’t know why Clottey didn’t try to use movement, jabs and counter punching against Pacquiao, because that’s how you beat him. In his two fights with Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez used a combination of movement and punching while Pacquiao was throwing shots. In that way, Marquez was able to find a lot of success countering Pacquiao.

What Clottey was doing was just standing in one place, covering up and waiting for Pacquiao to stop throwing punches before he would start throwing shots of his own. It was a bad plan, and the same plan that Clottey uses in all his fights. There was no adjustments on his part for the Pacquiao fight, so he deserved to lose badly.

But that’s not reason to believe that Mayweather would fare the same fate as him, because he wouldn’t be crazy enough to fight the same way. Mayweather doesn’t need to throw a lot of punches, because his movement keeps his opponents from landing. When you have a fighter chasing another fighter around the ring for 12 rounds, not landing and eating a lot of shots to the head, it’s easy to beat them without landing a lot.