Pacquiao has a chance against Mayweather if he throws 800 punches, says Bernstein

By Boxing News - 03/17/2015 - Comments

floyd5By Chris Williams: Showtime commentator Al Berstein believes that WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao has a good chance of beating WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr on May 2nd if Pacquiao can throw at least 800 punches or more in the fight.

That comes out to basically 67 punches per round thrown for the 36-year-old Pacquiao if he throws 800 punches. If you’ve seen a lot of fights before, you’ll know that it’s difficult for a fighter to throw that many punches unless their opponent is standing in one place much of the time.

It doesn’t matter how quick a fighter is, you’re not going to throw 67 punches per round if your opponent is moving much of the time. Against a moving target, Pacquiao – or any fighter – would be lucky to throw even 30 punches.

Of those 30 punches, they’d be lucky to land 25 percent of them. So we could see Pacquiao landing 7 to 8 punches per round if Mayweather moves a lot. That’s not going to be enough for Pacquiao to win many rounds unless Mayweather isn’t throwing punches, and I really doubt that.

“The key element is whether Pacquiao can be a volume puncher. If he can throw 800 or more punches, he has a chance in this fight,” Berstein said via Thaboxingvoice.com. “If he throws less than that it’s going to be difficult.”

I think it’s going to be very, very difficult for Pacquiao in this fight, because he’s surely not going to be throwing 800-1000 punches in this fight. Pacquiao threw over 1000 punches against former Top Rank stable fighter Joshua Clottey in their fight in 2010. That was against a totally stationary Clottey, who fought like a sparring partner the entire fight by standing with his back against the ropes and not moving.

Pacquiao was able to throw over 1,000 punches, but he ended up looking really tired, as he threw a mess of arm punches that hit Clottey’s gloves all night long. It wasn’t impressive stuff by Pacquiao. He didn’t throw body punches, and instead just threw 1000 arm punches.

Mayweather isn’t going to fight Pacquiao by standing in one place. A more logical way of seeing the fight is for Bernstein to assume that Mayweather will be moving for 12 rounds, and Pacquiao throwing maybe 360 punches in the fight, and landing 90 shots for the entire fight.

The question is can Pacquiao beat Mayweather by landing only 90 punches for the entire fight? I really don’t think so. That’s not going to be enough punches for Pacquiao to win the fight, or even come close to winning it.

The World Boxing Council have created a WBC Emerald belt for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. The belt has emeralds and titanium. It doesn’t change anything in terms of the normal titles that will be up for grabs for the fight. Mayweather will have his WBA and WBC 147 pound titles on the line, whereas Pacquiao will be putting up his WBO welterweight title.

The Emerald strap is just something the WBC has created to make the fight more interesting. I’m not sure that the fight fans will care too much whether the belt has emeralds or copper. They just want to see a good fight. The WBC would be better off saying their money and just having the regular title won.

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Who looks at title belts? The fans will glance at it briefly, but they’re main focus is going to be on the two fighters. I doubt that Mayweather will even bother putting his belts on his shoulders or around his waist after the fight. He’s beyond that kind of thing. The younger fighters that are looking to be validated by the fans tend to sling the title belts over their shoulders or around their waist.



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