By Chris Williams: While Floyd Mayweather Jr is considered to be one of the best defensive fighters in boxing, former four division world champion Nonito Donaire thinks Manny Pacquiao will be able to do a number on Mayweather in their fight on May 2nd. Donaire sees Pacquiao having no problems getting to Mayweather to land his power shots.
“He [Mayweather] has never faced a guy like Manny. If Pacquiao doesn’t go out there and give Mayweather a chance to study him, he should be fine,” Donaire said via the Manilastandard.com. While Mayweather has speed, Pacquiao is explosive and comes at you from different angles.”
I’m not sure that Donaire is aware of this or not, but Pacquiao doesn’t really use a lot of angles anymore when he fights. Pacquiao is mostly just a straight ahead fighter. Pacquiao comes forward and then retreats. That’s pretty much it. All the hopping around and side to side movement that Pacquiao used to do in his fights is long gone. He hasn’t fought like that since 2009, and he’s gotten slower and slower with each fight.
Donaire will be fighting later this month on 3/28 against second tier fighter William Prado at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in the Philippines.
“Pacquiao lunges in and reaches you like he did against the much taller Chris Algieri, so catching Mayweather won’t be a problem,” Donaire said.
For Pacquiao’s sake, he shouldn’t be lunging at Mayweather in this fight, because it could result in Pacquiao getting caught with a shot that he doesn’t see coming. Mayweather loves to fight guys that lunge at him the way that Pacquiao does in his fights.
The lunging is going to get Pacquiao hurt if he fights in this manner against Mayweather. Pacquiao has to be disciplined if he wants a chance of beating Mayweather, and that means no lunging. I hate to break this to Donaire, but catching Mayweather will be a problem, a big problem. It’s not easy to nail Mayweather with shots.
Donaire seems to have Mayweather mixed up with the soft guys that Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum has been feeding him during the last six years. Those guys were definitely easy for Pacquiao to hit with the exception of Juan Manuel Marquez. But Mayweather is a completely different story, and I think Pacquiao is going to find out the hard way that it’s not going to be so easy for him to land his shots.
Pacquiao will definitely land some punches, but he’s going to need to come to terms with his punch percentage winding up in the 20% range for this fight rather than the 50% area that he’s capable of averaging when matched up against weak fodder type of opposition.
“I’ll pick Manny because he’s got the speed, he’s smart and as long as he is not going to fight inside, where he has to look out for the right counter of Mayweather, he should prevail, Donaire Sr said.
Pacquiao’s speed is no better than Mayweather’s. Pacquiao will probably look to take the fight to the inside because he’ll be able to increase his punch percentage, but I don’t think Mayweather is going to accommodate him by letting him get in close.
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