By Chris Williams: Angel Memo Heredia, the strength and conditioning coach for Juan Manuel Marquez, thinks Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) should work on his punching power in order for him to score a knockout over the Filipino star Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) in their fight on May 2nd.
Heredia notes that Mayweather isn’t punching like he used to earlier in his career, and he thinks this is something that can be remedied by him working on his punching power.
Heredia thinks Mayweather can make his fight against Pacquiao all the more easier if he develops his punching power for the fight so that he can stroke Pacquiao out of there with a big head shot.
Heredia worked wonders in developing Marquez’s power for his fourth and final fight against Pacquiao in 2012. Heredia didn’t ignore Marquez’s speed entirely, but he definitely put more focus on getting Marquez as strong as possible for the fight. The result was Marquez putting Pacquiao down on the canvas twice with right hands to the head.
The second knockdown was a crushing right hand to the head that knocked Pacquiao clean out, and had him face down on the canvas for a long time. Mayweather could definitely use power like that. Each time Marquez would land a hard shot, it definitely got the attention of the boxing fans at ringside, because it made so much noise.
It was like a loud thud type of noise each time Marquez would land a solid blow, and it was pretty clear that Pacquiao wasn’t going to be able to go the full distance with the Mexican warrior if he chose to mix it up with him, which ultimately is what Pacquiao did.
“Mayweather is super-fast, but I really haven’t seen him [do] any heavy punching like he used to back in the days,” Heredia said via esnewsreporting.com. “I don’t know; maybe that’s something he needs to start working on it. Develop more punching power rather than just speed because now you’re going to have two guys that are going to go at each other with speed. Speed is going to be a little more difficult for the judges to tell the winner.”
Mayweather has plenty of time to develop his punching power before the Pacquiao fight, and he’s got one of the best in the business in Alex Ariza. This guy was the guru who turned Pacquiao into a devastating power puncher for a short period of time. When Pacquiao was following Ariza’s full strength regimen, it was paying off tenfold with Pacquiao knocking out guys left and right.
Pacquiao eventually started having problems with cramps and tightness from the strength exercises, and he stopped doing the full regimen that he’d done earlier. If Ariza can get Mayweather on the same strength regimen that Pacquiao was following, then I can see Mayweather hurting Pacquiao with every shot he lands.
“I think it is possible [for Floyd to gain power before the fight]. It’s only 8 weeks apart from the fight, give or take, so I think if he develops a good program he should be able to [give] a good fight,” Heredia said.
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