By Chris Williams: One question that is on the minds of many people as December 8th fast approaches is why on earth is Manny Pacquiao changing his fighting style for his 4th fight with Juan Manuel Marquez on 12/8?
If you look at Pacquiao’s success in the three fights he’s had with Marquez you can see that he’s been near perfect. Pacquiao has won two out of the three fights with the first fight ending in a controversial 12 round draw in 2004.
If Pacquiao is winning each time he fights Marquez then why change? It tells you that Pacquiao has been listening to the feedback from boxing fans, many of which who saw him losing all three fights with Marquez. Instead of getting better with each fight with Marquez, Pacquiao has been getting worse and worse each time out.
As controversial as their first fight was back in 2004, the last two fights in 2004 and 2011 have been fights in which many fans from the boxing public have been downright disgusted with the judging for those fights. Pacquiao looked to have both fights, even worse than the first fight, yet he was still given victories.
Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach have recently grasped onto the idea that Pacquiao has to get to get back the energy and wildness that he had in his youth so that he can score a convincing win over Marquez. Roach, strength trainer and even Pacquiao himself, believe that the way for Pacquiao to get back to where he was before in the past was for him to work harder in training camp so he can find the energy of his lost youth.
While working for this perhaps unattainable goal, Pacquiao and Roach are tinkering with his fighting style to change it so that he’s not so predictable for Marquez. The problem with that is there are only so many variations that Roach can use for Pacquiao. This isn’t football where you can design a 100 different offensive plays to trick a defense.
Pacquiao has always been kind of an unorthodox type of fighter and has always thrown shots from unpredictable angles. He’s not going to show Marquez something he hasn’t already seen before at this point because how much more unpredictable can you get? I also don’t think it’s possible that Pacquiao will be able to build up his stamina to get back to where it was years ago. That doesn’t seem likely that he’ll be able to do that.
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