By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach sees a scenario where Floyd Mayweather Jr. could pull out of the Pacquiao fight that is scheduled for May 2nd. Why exactly Mayweather would pull out of the fight with Pacquiao is unclear, but Roach seems to think it’s possible. Needless to say, this is a horrible way for Roach to be building up the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. If his idea is to get boxing fans excited about purchasing the fight on pay-per-view, then the last thing he should be doing is saying that Mayweather might pull out of the fight. When casual boxing fans hear about stuff like that, they’re not going to want to dump $100 on purchasing the fight on PPV and wind up seeing only the undercard fighters. Roach needs to think carefully before he speaks because he’s going to turn off the fans if he keeps talking like that.
He feels that Mayweather never wanted the fight against Pacquiao in the first place, and now that he’s scheduled to fight him on 5/2, he might look to get out of the fight.
“I don’t believe that Floyd ever wanted this fight, he was forced to take it by the public and the media. I wouldn’t be surprised if Floyd pulled out now,” Roach said.
Roach doesn’t say anything about how it was Pacquiao’s side who didn’t agree to the random blood testing that Mayweather wanted during their first negotiations in 2010. If it was Mayweather who didn’t want the fight then why was it Pacquiao’s side who didn’t agree to what Mayweather was asking for with the random blood testing?
“We have a great idea of when and where we are going to attack Mayweather,” Roach said.
The plan that Pacquiao is going to use is obviously going to be the in and out attack that he’s always used. He can try doing thing like moving side to side on his attacks, or circling away from Mayweather’s right hand, but I’m not sure if it’s going to change much in terms of what happens in the fight.
Mayweather is going to quickly adapt to whatever Pacquiao does in the ring and come up with something to foil it. If Roach and Pacquiao were smart, they wouldn’t spend too much time thinking of the perfect strategy for the fight, because it’s likely to be figured out quickly by Mayweather on May 2nd and countered with something. Roach is thinking too hard for this fight, and he’s likely to give Pacquiao a bunch of wrong game strategy that will cause him more troubles than success.
Roach said “He’s a different Manny Pacquiao than I have seen him going into previous training camps. He is punching so much harder in training for this camp.”
How can Pacquiao be punching harder in this training camp than he did in past training camps? He’s on the verge of turning 37? You don’t become a stronger puncher as you get older. That’s doesn’t happen. It’s actually the reverse. I’ve heard of baseball hitters hitting more homeruns as they near 40, but I haven’t heard of fighters suddenly hitting with more power at the age of 36. I think Roach is kidding himself if he thinks Pacquiao is getting stronger. If it makes Roach feel better to believe that then more power to him, but I don’t believe it for a second.
“Manny is better than ever, his attitude is different and I’ve never seen him work this hard. His speed is faster, his punches are harder,” Roach said. “I’m really happy where he’s at. His legs look great; he’s on his toes all the time.”
One thing that Pacquiao can that might help him against Mayweather is for him to stop bouncing around endlessly. All that useless bouncing is an energy drain on Pacquiao, and it won’t help him against Mayweather. Instead of bouncing around, Pacquiao should stay flat-footed as much as possible so that he can conserve his energy and get more power on his shots.
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