By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao expects Floyd Mayweather Jr to go into full flight if he winds up hurting him in their fight on May 2nd. If that happens, Pacquiao says he’ll chase Mayweather down to try and score a knockout.
Whether Pacquiao can even hurt Mayweather is really the big question. If Pacquiao could only score flash knockdowns against Chris Algieri in his last fight, it’s doubtful that he’ll be able to come up with the kind of power that he’ll need to score a stoppage victory over Mayweather.
“If I hurt him [Mayweather]. I expect him to run. Otherwise he might fight me toe-to-toe,” Pacquiao said.
I don’t think Pacquiao has been watching enough of Mayweather’s past fights to know what he’ll trying to do in this fight if he gets hurt. If Pacquiuao had watched Mayweather’s fights, he’d have noticed that Mayweather never runs when he’s hurt.
Instead, he ties up his opponents to keep them from getting their shots off. He’s done this every time he’s ever been hurt before. Pacquiao won’t be able to chase Mayweather if he hurts him, because Mayweather will be tying him up. It’s as simple as that.
As far as Pacquiao thinking Mayweather fight him in a toe-to-toe manner, I think that’s wishful thinking and dead wrong on Pacquiao’s part. Mayweather won’t fight Pacquiao in a toe-to-toe brawling fashion. That’s not how Mayweather fights.
Instead of brawling with Pacquiao, you can expect to see Mayweather moving around the ring continuously, setting traps and making Pacquiao pay with his sloppy fighting style by nailing him with shots.
When asked how Pacquiao will try and deal with Mayweather’s height and reach advantage, Pacquiao said “Use my left and right [fists].”
Pacquiao is going to need to come up with a better plan that simply him saying he’s going to use his fists to overcome Mayweather’s reach advantage, because Pacquiao is going to be hitting a lot of air if he tries to land his shots.
Pacquiao is going to need to be using his feet rather than his fists in order for him to get close enough to Mayweather for him to land his shots. Simply saying that he’ll be using his fists isn’t going to be good enough to do the job. The wily veteran Juan Manuel Marquez tried to use his fists against Mayweather in their fight in 2009, but Mayweather had Marquez missing all night long in giving him a boxing lesson.
As we’ve seen in the past, Marquez proved that he’s a better fighter than Pacquiao in out-boxing him in their first three fights before knocking him out in their fourth. Marquez is about the same size as Pacquiao, and he couldn’t lay a glove on Mayweather. If Marquez couldn’t reach Mayweather with his shots, then the chances are that neither will Pacquiao.
Pacquiao is the shortest opponent that Mayweather has fought in the last 14 years since he stopped little 5’5” Jesus Chavez in the 9th round in their fight in 2005. This was a fight that took place at super featherweight. Chavez couldn’t land anything against Mayweather in that fight despite him trying hard to connect with his big home run swings.
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