By Dave Lahr: Former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield believes that World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. bout is a “toss-up.” In an interview at 8countnews.com, Holyfield says “On paper, you always give it to Mayweather, but on personal ability and in a guy that fights through and through, you would say Pacquiao. This is what makes this fight a toss up.” Holyfield has always been a brawler during his great boxing career, and for that reason it’s not surprising that he’s siding with Pacquiao, who is also a brawler in the same mold as Holyfield.
However, Holyfield has been out-boxed in his career by certain fighters and that should give him a good hint that Mayweather will likely be able to handle the brawling of the shorter Pacquiao and win a fairly easy decision. An expert boxer usually beats a fighter that is limited to brawling. Pacquiao is a slugger, but not much more than that. For him to beat a skilled fighter like Mayweather, it would depend on Mayweather fighting a really dumb fight by going after Pacquiao and trying to fight his fight.
Mayweather would have to leave his brain by in his dressing room and then go out and try to bum rush Pacquiao like Ricky Hatton did in his 2nd round knockout loss last May. If Mayweather were to do that, then I would certainly expect for him to be knocked out in short order by Pacquiao. But Mayweather never fights like that, and probably never will. Because of that, I see Pacquiao getting royally spanked by Mayweather when/if they do ever fight. It’s nice that Holyfield thinks that Pacquiao could win this fight, but it’s pretty meaningless given the extraordinary skills of Mayweather and the limited slugging ability of Pacquiao. Manny is a slugger, and that’s about all he is. We saw how limited Pacquiao was in his two fights with Juan Manuel Marquez, who boxed circles around Pacquiao, winning most of the rounds of their two fights. Mayweather easily beat Marquez last year, whereas Pacquiao won a controversial decision over Marquez in 2008 and fought to a controversial draw with him in 2004. Pacquiao never did fight Marquez a third time, even though boxing fans wanted to see it and Marquez wanted the fight. I had Marquez easily winning the 2nd fight by an eight rounds to four score. Pacquiao, the popular fighter, got the decision by the judges, but many people still believe that Marquez won that fight.
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