(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/Mayweather Promotions) By Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) says he could see worry in the eyes of the 36-year-old Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) when the two of them came face to face during their recent stare down at their press conference.
The camera angle didn’t give boxing fans a chance to see the two of their eyes during the stare down, but you could plainly see that Pacquiao broke off the stare down first. Pacquiao then looked uncomfortable as he looked at the audience, as if he’d been unnerved by the experience. It wasn’t lost on Mayweather. He says he saw fear and worry in the eyes of Pacquiao that he couldn’t mask when the two of them looked each other in the eyes.
“I see it in his eyes,” Mayweather told TV Azteca via CBSsports.com. “I can read his body language. He’s very worried.”
Mayweather and Pacquiao stared each other down for approximately one minute while they stood eye to eye in the face off. The fear that Mayweather saw in Pacquiao’s eyes is something will possibly benefit Mayweather when he gets in the ring with Pacquiao in their mega-fight on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“He’s never faced this style before,” Mayweather said. “He makes a lot of mistakes and I will capitalize on those mistakes.”
It’s definitely true that Pacquiao has never faced anyone even close to having the same style of fighting as Mayweather. I guess the closest thing that Pacquiao has come to a fighter with a style like Mayweather’s is Pacquiao’s first fight against Tim Bradley in 2012. That was a fight in which Bradley used a lot of movement to out-box Pacquiao and win a decision.
In their rematch in 2014, Bradley abandoned the original style that he used to beat Pacquiao and instead he stood and slugged with him in the pocket. It was very peculiar. Bradley is nothing like Mayweather in terms of hand speed, boxing skills, defense and talent though. The only thing that Bradley is similar to Mayweather is with the way he moves around the ring, but Bradley isn’t even as good as Mayweather in that department.
The mistakes that Mayweather spotted from Pacquiao is likely the way that Pacquiao charges forward looking to land shots. Pacquiao always does this, and it makes him incredibly easy to time with shots. That’s why Juan Manuel Marquez was able to knock Pacquiao out cold in their fourth fight in 2012.
Marquez timed Pacquiao and took advantage of his sloppy fighting style to knock him out with a right hand to the head. If Marquez was able to do this, then you can bet that Mayweather will have a good chance of doing the same thing to him when he gets him inside the ring.
“He has a good defense, but I don’t worry about that,” Pacquiao said. “I can easily break that defense.”
Pacquiao is going to have problems landing any shots to try and break the defense of Mayweather. Pacquiao doesn’t have an aggressive attacking style like Marcos Maidana, and he’s going to need a style like that to land his shots. Pacquiao doesn’t have an aggressive enough style to break Mayweather’s defense.
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