By Esteban Garduno: I have to admit that what I saw of Manny Pacquiao against Joshua Clottey didn’t give me a feeling that Pacquiao could beat or even compete with the likes of Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Boxing is a science, a sport of the mind if you will. The fighters are ones that are experts at ring strategy and who know how to capitalize on their opponents mistakes. I see Mosley and Mayweather being the ultimate ideal at coming up with a strategy to beat their opponents and then following it to the letter. Sadly, I didn’t see that from Pacquiao in his fight with Clottey.
If there was a strategy behind him throwing 1200 punches – many of them seemingly aimed at Clottey’s gloves for some reason – I can’t understand it. I can’t see Mosley and Mayweather throwing punches at an opponent’s gloves for 12 solid rounds. And I can’t see either of them throwing 1200 of those punches, knowing that most of them are getting blocked.
Those guys would have gotten a clue probably immediately that it’s a waste of time to throw punches down the middle straight at Clottey’s gloves. So why didn’t Pacquiao figure this out? Why did he waste punches round after rounds, just spraying punches at Clottey’s gloves, as if he was hoping they would drop at some point. I think there no was real plan behind it.
It seemed like madness to me to throw punches that were being blocked. It was impressive that Pacquiao could average 100 punches thrown per found for 12 rounds, but that’s not really a big deal. A lot of fighters can do this. He’s not the first or the last fighters that will throw that many punches.
Bigger fighters like Joe Calzaghe, a super middleweight, and Paul Williams, a light middleweight, both have averaged over 100 punches per round in a lot of their fights. The difference here is that they seem much better at placing their shots in areas where they feel that they have a better chance of landing.
What I saw of Pacquiao in his fight with Clottey was a fighter that was just throwing a massive amount of punches without aiming them. I couldn’t make out what Roach was telling Pacquiao in between rounds, because he was whispering to him a lot of the time. However, I would like to have hoped that Roach was telling Pacquiao to start doing a better job of throwing shots in different areas than just the gloves of Clottey.
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