By Chris Williams: In order to defeat Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is going to need to go on the offensive early, throw a lot hard combinations, and not give Pacquiao the early rounds, says former heavyweight champ George Foreman.

Foreman doesn’t think Mayweather will win the fight because he’ll start off a little too slow and too many rounds away to the Filipino star. Foreman thinks it is winnable fight for Mayweather, but only if he attacks Pacquiao from the opening bell and nails him with hard shots and not just single shots. Foreman thinks Mayweather needs to throw combinations to get the better of the 36-year-old Pacquiao and win rounds.

“Against Pacquiao, you have to throw hard shots and go for the finish two or three times,” Foreman said to sports.yahoo.com. “He’s [Mayweather] going to have to throw combinations and big punches. You’re not going to get a knockout but try early anyway to stay ahead on points.”

Juan Manuel Marquez always made it a point to throw hard combinations back at Pacquiao in each of their four fights. He wasn’t just trying to nail Pacquiao with single counter shots, although he did do a lot of that. Most of the time though, Marquez would look to throw two to three shots, and he was able to get the better of Pacquiao in almost every exchange they had in their four fights. Don’t ask me how Pacquiao won two of the fights and was given a draw in a third, because I don’t understand it. Marquez won all four fights from my perspective. Marquez had a lot of success in coming forward and backing Pacquiao up. He didn’t just wait for Pacquiao much of the time like Pacquiao’s other opponents.

Marquez was always willing to take the fight to Pacquiao and force him to either stand and meet him or back up. What we discovered in those four fights is that Pacquiao isn’t nearly as good when an opponent is coming at him than he is when he’s coming after his opponents. Pacquiao also isn’t very good fighting going backwards. In fact, he’s terrible and fighting in reverse gear. He doesn’t have the reach and he’s unable to land his short combinations.

“He [Mayweather] can only use that counterpunching if somebody is attacking,” Foreman said. “Pacquaio uses his style and angles, he is hard to land on with a counterpunch. Mayweather is a defensive genius, but believe me, to win these rounds it’s going to take offense.”

Foreman is probably right. Mayweather isn’t going to be able to land enough counter punches for him to win rounds. He’s also not going to be able to win rounds by just jabbing and moving from the outside. There are a lot of judges that will give rounds to a fighter just based on him coming forward even if he’s not landing anything. It might not be enough that Mayweather is making Pacquiao miss all night long with his shots.

Mayweather is going to need to walk Pacquiao down, or go after him when he tries that jumping in and jumping out thing that he likes to use. When Pacquiao jumps backwards to start retreating, he’s vulnerable. He’ll stop when someone comes at him and try and throw combinations, but his feet aren’t set for him to get any power on them and he’ll be susceptible to getting knocked down on his backside,