By Chris Williams: Amir Khan hasn’t changed his mind about his belief that Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) will be too good for Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) when the two of them finally get it on in less than two months on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
While Khan would like to give the 36-year-old Pacquiao the benefit of the doubt in the fight by picking him to defeat the highly skilled Mayweather, Khan just thinks Pacquiao isn’t the same fighter he was five years ago due to the punishment he’s soaked up in fights against the likes of Juan Manuel Marquez and Tim Bradley.
Pacquiao was knocked out cold by Marquez in 2012, and he took a lot of head shots in his second fight against Bradley in 2014.
“I’ve really got Mayweather. I think Mayweather, hands down, will take the fight [against Pacquiao],” Khan said via Fighthype.com. “Obviously Manny’s been in a lot of wars. I think five years ago, it wouldn’t been an exciting fight to watch. They were both at their peak. But since then, Manny Pacquiao’s been knocked out. He’s had two bad losses and a lot of wars. It breaks down a fighter,” Khan said.
It’s hard to disagree with Khan, because he obviously knows Pacquiao really well due to the sparring the two had in the past. While Khan has never sparred with Mayweather before, he knows enough from watching him fight that he’s got too much talent for Pacquiao. At the time that Khan sparred Pacquiao years ago, Pacquiao was still at the top of his game and hadn’t been knocked out yet by Marquez. But the KO loss to Marquez, as well as the natural aging that has gone on, it puts Pacquiao in a tough situation for the Mayweather fight.
“Having a lot of wars; back to back wars and tough fights and tough training camps, I think that’s affected Manny,” Khan said.
I think what will ultimately hurt Khan more for this fight with Mayweather more than the deterioration that has started setting in with his game is the fact that Pacquiao hasn’t changed his fighting style since he turned pro in 1995.
Pacquiao is still fighting with the same in and out fighting style that he used when he first came into the game 20 years ago, and there’s no mystery to what he does. He’s like a baseball pitcher who has one pitch that he uses to get hitters out with. It might work for a number of years, but eventually the hitters learn how to hit the pitcher’s best stuff. Unless that pitcher changes his pitch assortment by adding some new pitches, he’s going to find himself getting driven out of the game.
Unless Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach can come up with a new game plan for Pacquiao to use against Mayweather, I see this as being an easy fight for Mayweather on May 2nd. Judging by what Roach has been saying about Pacquiao’s game plan, I think he’s going to be using the same in and out attacking style that he’s been using for his entire career when he gets inside the ring with Mayweather.
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