floyd002 By TFF: The question has been in everyone’s mind since the possibility of the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao fight first came up like 6 years ago. It’s been a ridiculously long time for sure when in other boxing eras we would have had a definitive answer 5 years ago based on fight outcome as to who would have dominated who. So whose fault was it then and whose fault is it now for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight not taking place?

The truth as to whose fault it was years ago is not as clear as day or night but the truth as to who’s responsible in recent times for the fight not happening should be as clear as a flawless diamond. The truth in most cases lies somewhere in the middle, but time tends to clarify things a bit more, and more of the truth will eventually swing one way or the other.

So I’m going to be as clear as I can and I’ll use simple examples that a 1st grader can understand and I’m not trying to insult or be disrespectful in any way it just seems that some people can relate to different things easier if looked at from a different perspective.

Here’s a simple example: the two richest men on the planet decide to pool their wealth together to build the biggest building on the planet on a scale no one has ever imagined and each one of them alone could not fund it without the other. Floyd needs Manny to make that kind of money and vice versa. They will both always make big money in boxing but never the kind of money they can both make with the help of one another.

Years ago Mayweather Jr offers Pacquiao $40 million dollars for the fight when it was worth about $150+ million. Pacquiao’s side said no way we want 50/50, but before the fight was removed from off the table by TMT the money team, Pacquiao’s side countered a 65/45 split in favor of Mayweather Jr to make the fight materialize. Negotiations ended and Floyd books another fight with someone else making peanuts by comparison and so did Manny. What some people know is that Pacquiao’s camp before this round of negotiations had previously offered Mayweather jr $50+ million, which Mayweather turned down.

To be clear $50+ million was more than double what Floyd had made in any previous fight including the Oscar De La Hoya fight which was Floyd’s top Payday in which Oscar made $52 million and Floyd made $25 million.

Then came Mayweather’s round of negotiations some time later when the fight was worth even more and low balls Manny with a $40 million offer for him. $40 million is an offer that is hard for average folks to understand why it was an insult and a joke of an offer. 2 boxers that are equally popular but in reality Pacquiao has more followers/fans on a worldwide level while Mayweather Jr also has large amount of followers because of that love and hate factor true fans and followers who are willing to pay to see Mayweather lose (Floyd knows this, and he’s commented on it so has 50 cent it was part of the plan from the beginning. The hate followers are just as valuable as the actual fans), but OK they both bring so much money to the table that without one another.

The pay-per-view numbers are irrelevant by comparison including the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight numbers which broke records. Yes, Mayweather Jr makes much more money than Pacquiao but without him his paydays are safe but miniscule by comparison, Floyd’s pay would be astronomical even if Bob Arum were to run the show 100% which he won’t. In fact, Arum’s involvement would end up being more of a back seat passenger than a driver and it wouldn’t be by choice and will be unfair from Floyd’s side but it’s the only way the fight would probably happen.

Floyd has chosen to sidestep Pacquiao and everything points to uncertainty that he could pull out a win against him. My honest opinion is the minute Floyd saw Pacquiao beat Oscar De la Hoya, he chose not to take the fight against Pacquiao. Even though in all fairness to Mayweather, De la Hoya was not the same boxer that faced Floyd just a short time earlier but it was a severe beat down to say the least. So I’m pretty sure Floyd thought to himself at some point ‘I barely eked out a split decision win over Oscar and this guy [Pacquiao] totally dominated him from start to finish.’

The Pacquiao vs. Ricky Hatton fight which ended with the decimation of Hatton (still in his prime) in just 2 rounds didn’t help the situation any. And then the smack talk about Steroids and PEDs started. I personally think it was fear disguised as smack talk, but only Floyd knows for sure. I bet it wasn’t far from the actual truth. Now fast forward now to present time. Marcos Maidana comes reasonably close to upsetting Mayweather last May.

Floyd out-pointed Maidana over 12 rounds no doubt, but I suspect Mayweather was in bed for days after that fight. Maidana landed punches on his arms, back and shoulders. While a lot of the shots weren’t legal, they hurt anyways. A lot of punches landed on Floyd’s body that night and a whole lot of them missed. It reminded me of the movie “Signs,” where actor Mel Gibson’s dying wife tells him to tell Merle her brother to just swing away, an ex-college baseball player in the movie that had the most home runs but also had the most strike outs in the league because he would swing at everything.

The point that was made in that fight was that a cluster bomb of punches several times per round will equate to Mayweather getting hit by several of them. That’s one of the May-Vinci code ingredients. The other is speed with quick reflexes (the ability to throw quick punches and get out of the way of fast incoming punches). I believe that Pacquiao has the speed to expose Mayweather Jr.

Here’s a scenario I see happening several times in that fight: Pacquiao throws intentionally an extended jab knowing that Mayweather Jr will try to counter a straight off the jab. Pacquiao weaves to the side and cracks Mayweather Jr and hard and Pacquiao has the speed to add in that extra move. Mayweather doesn’t have a formidable punch in this weight division, as he barely had a punch when he started 18 years ago. He certainly wasn’t known for it, but that’s not to say that an accumulation of back to back punches wouldn’t make quick work of an opponent. But the problem is that Mayweather is just not that kind of fighter, and not a volume puncher.

He’s just a sharp fast counter puncher, but even still he wouldn’t have the punching power to pull out a Hail Mary KO win over Pacquiao like Juan Manuel Marquez did in 2012. I’m not saying that Marquez didn’t train for those types of openings. Of course he did. That’s his style. He’s a counter puncher. What I’m saying is that Pacquiao that night was over anxious to get Marquez out of there and it was too early in the fight to try and go for the KO, and Pacquiao almost did achieve it. The fight was almost stopped in the 6th round. You can see the referee looking to step in because of the beating Marquez was receiving. The rest was history. Pacquiao rushed in fast while Marquez put everything into the punch.

Mayweather wouldn’t have walked away from that punch either so don’t kid yourselves. Pacquiao effectively doubled the power of the incoming punch in the same way a head on vehicle collision crash does and that’s why it was so deadly. But everyone was so quick to say that Pacquiao was over-the-hill because he’d lost twice in a row to Marquez and Tim Bradley.

Recently, Mayweather has been quick to point out that Pacquiao still has Bradley problems and has Marquez problems. It seemed that everyone had forgotten that Pacquiao had been robbed in the first Bradley fight and the Marquez KO was just used to give more credibility to the Bradley loss.

So people had forgotten that the judges were being investigated after that bad decision, but OK, life goes on. Pacquiao eventually fought Brandon Rios last year in November after Pacquiao’s longest career layoff. That fight although impressive showed that Pacquiao was a bit gun shy. People realized that and again was labeled him as possibly over-the-hill.

Bradley then takes on Marquez, which many thought would be an easy fight for Marquez, because by just referencing the Pacquiao KO and the slim win for Bradley over Ruslan Provodnikov, but they were wrong. In fact, Bradley beat Marquez easier than Pacquiao ever did by boxing, moving and using his speed advantage over Marquez. Then Pacquiao fought Bradley for a second time last April. In my opinion, Pacquiao showed in that fight a more rounded boxer than his previous 2009 self and I’ll even argue a superior Pacquiao to his previous aggressive younger self. He boxed and moved and threw a ton of punches and used very good defense.

That’s something that Pacquiao isn’t known for. Pacquiao faced that night more in his prime Bradley than the one he faced 2 years earlier. It was like seeing the anime Dragon Ball Z. Pacquiao just went Super Saiyan (leveled up). Bradley showed great speed in the first few rounds and Pacquiao just left him in the dust.

It’s this speed that will get to Mayweather Jr. It doesn’t matter if the ring is 30 x 30; Pacquiao will get to any corner quicker than Floyd because of speed and incredible footwork. Mayweather’s connect percentage against Pacquiao will be dismal.Mayweather had a great connect percentage against Robert Guerrero, Canelo and Maidana. Do you see a pattern of Mayweather facing very slow plodding fighters? They were very good ones in their own right but much slower than Floyd and that’s how he likes them.

2004 is 10 years ago going on 11 when Zab Judah matched Mayweather’s speed in their match up and out-gunned Mayweather for 4 rounds straight. Judah has never had the speed of Pacquiao.
To sum it up, Mayweather will try to hang with Pacquiao as long as he can before just going full turtle to cover up like Joshua Clottey did in his fight against Pacquiao in 2010. Don’t get me wrong; Clottey is no Mayweather Jr, but the end result will be about the same.

Pacquiao is just too much of a speedy accurate volume puncher, and if Maidana was able to connect as many as he did on Mayweather, then you can just speculate as to how many more shots Pacquiao will hit Mayweather with. On the flipside of that coin, Mayweather will connect with fewer punches on a much faster moving target. Mayweather did better by keep Maidana off him in the rematch by running. Do you think Mayweather Jr can run away from Pacquiao? Absolutely not. When Mayweather gets there, Pacquiao will be there waiting for him already with a cup of coffee as if to say ‘what took you so long?’

I hope Mayweather and Pacquiao fight each other, but I personally don’t give Mayweather Jr a single win out of a best of 10 fights against Pacquiao it just seem very clear now after seeing the two Mayweather-Maidana fights.