By Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) turns 38 years young today, as he gets ready for his May 2nd unification bout against 36-year-old WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
While Mayweather is nearing 40, he’s fighting right now like a fighter 10 years younger than his chronological age, and he still has the hand speed and reflexes of a fighter in his late 20s rather than an average 38-year-old fighter.
Mayweather’s talent and great genetics enables him to do things that other fighters can’t do. By his age, most fighters are washed up and in retirement, but that’s not the case with Mayweather.
Pacquiao is currently being trained by Buboy Fernandez until his trainer Freddie Roach arrives from Macau, China to begin training Pacquiao on March 8th at the Wildcard Gym in Los Angeles, California.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb937LB6zjk
Roach hasn’t said what strategy he’ll have Pacquiao using in the fight, but it really doesn’t matter because Pacquiao only has one way of fighting. He never stays in the pocket with an opponent. It’s always the in and out attacks, which has made him very predictable.
Since his knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao has won his last three fights against beatable opposition in Brandon Rios, Tim Bradley and Chris Algieri.
Some boxers like Ricky Hatton are saying that Pacquiao has shown improvement in his game since the Marquez fight, but you also have to look at the guys that Pacquiao has been facing. Algieri has no power, Rios is quite slow with terrible defense, and Bradley is a guy that was already exposed by Ruslan Provodnikov.
“We expect Mayweather to do the thing he is best known for,” said Pacquiao’s assistant trainer Buboy Fernandez via Philboxing.com. “We will be trying to do things Manny does bet. That’s what Manny has told us even before we started our build up program. But, of course, it still depends on what coach Freddie [Roach] has in mind. We’re sure coach Freddie has already mapped out his plans as to how we will carry out the program.”
As soon as Roach takes over the training from Buboy, you can expect him to have Pacquiao fighting with the same in and out style he always uses. Roach will no doubt have Pacquiao rushing forward from different angles with him throwing fast combinations before retreating.
Pacquiao always uses a couple of feints and leads with a jab when he rushes forward. This is something that Mayweather will no doubt be studying and expecting from Pacquiao. Unless Roach can break Pacquiao from this habit, which I highly doubt he can, he’s going to be getting picked off by Mayweather each time he comes forward trying to land something.
It’ll be up to Pacquiao to show that he can keep fighting after he gets nailed with a right hand or left hook each time he bum rushes Mayweather. In the fights where Pacquiao is hit while coming forward, he tends to back off to reset his offense rather than staying in the pocket to deliver his payload.
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