Is Pacquiao starting to slow down?

By Boxing News - 03/16/2010 - Comments

Image: Is Pacquiao starting to slow down?By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao didn’t look all that impressive to me last Saturday night in beating Joshua Clottey by a 12 round decision. The hand speed wasn’t there, and neither was the movement and power. And looking at how badly Pacquiao was gasping for breaths in between rounds, it seemed like he wasn’t in shape. I don’t whether Pacquiao is long for the welterweight division unless he plans on getting out of the sport soon. I can see a point in the very near future where Pacquiao will start to take major punishment if he chooses to stick around much longer.

As it was last Saturday, Pacquiao got kind of beat up by Clottey, especially around the face. Clottey had no problems landing his shots and did a nice job of puffing up Pacquiao’s right eye in the limited amount of times that he landed during the night. If Pacquiao does eventually fight Floyd Mayweather, which I serious doubt at this time, I think Pacquiao is going to end up getting really pound by Mayweather and badly beaten up.

The way I see it all the feeding and the emphasis on making Pacquiao a bigger fighter has hurt him by making his slower and hurting his conditioning. While Pacquiao was in the corner in between rounds, I could even see fat on him. He’s starting to put weight on and it’s not muscle. That tells me that Pacquiao needs to lose some weight, stop easting as much, work on his conditioning more or think about retiring.

The way Pacquiao fought on Saturday night, I think Mayweather – or Mosley – would have beaten him senseless without any problems. Pacquiao has always been able to get away with having poor defensive skills because of his fast hands, aggressiveness and high work rate. But now that Pacquiao has moved up in weight and is looking to finally fight a live body in Mayweather, his lack of defensive skills are going to be badly exposed by Mayweather or Mosley.

You can’t fight those guys with a primitive brawling style like Pacquiao. It takes a complete fighter to not only beat those guys but to compete with them. What I saw of Pacquiao on Saturday night wasn’t a fighter that would be able to even come close to beating Mayweather or Mosley. My advice then is for Pacquiao to retire or take off some of that flab that he’s put on, stop eating so much and learn some defensive skills.

Pacquiao needs to say no to being power fed and he needs to work on his stamina. Also, I don’t know that Freddie Roach is going to be able to teach Pacquiao the defensive skills needed to beat Mayweather or Mosley. Roach has been training Pacquiao for years now, yet Pacquiao still is wide open defensively, as if he hasn’t learned anything. I think Pacquiao needs a defensive trainer to that can work with Roach and try and make Pacquiao a better fighter.



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