Was Pacquiao’s shoulder injury an accident waiting to happen?

By Michael Vena - 05/12/2015 - Comments

1-MAYPAC WEIGH IN-TRAPPFOTOS-3614By Yannis Mihanos: Many people were surprised with Manny Pacquiao’s (57-6-2, 38 KOs) reaction right after the fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pacquiao basically said that he fought while injured with a right shoulder problem.

In all pre-fight videos and especially in the media work out day, Pacquiao was flying: he appeared as strong, as sharp and as relaxed as ever. As the days passed we also witnessed an almost complete reverse in betting odds presenting Pacquiao not as an underdog but close to favorite for the fight.

There was something in the air, a feeling that Mayweather’s winning days would soon be over.

Watching Pacquiao at the day of the fight getting easily disarmed and beaten by Mayweather was a spectacle I admit not easy to watch.

Watching Pacquiao immediately afterwards in the interview not accepting defeat and presenting himself as injured, I felt a bit let down. This was not the usual Manny Pacquiao that I knew. His story was fully backed by his upper hand boss Bob Arum and of course from all his training team.

But I couldn’t help wondering the following: If this injury was so grave why did he accept to fight?

Did he really believe that Mayweather is an easy target?

Or was he forced to do it because there were so many lucrative contracts at stake from the sponsors and other investors, tied all with the basic requirement that the fight goes on as planned on May the 2nd?

All this has done nothing good to boxing and especially to Pacquiao. If you ask me about it, I have a faint guess about what happened and it starts with a question:
Did Pacquiao’s injury determined the outcome of the fight? No it didn’t. While I believe that Pacquiao had a real chronic problem with his shoulder I don’t think this was the real problem.

I don’t think anyway that he would have beaten Mayweather. Not after what I witnessed.

Mayweather always find the way to adapt with any opponent. My guess is that Pacquiao just couldn’t accept defeat.

Let me tell you something about injuries and how you can use them whenever you want as an excuse to avoid something.

I had a close friend who had chronic pain with his left knee, and he had to join the army force. There, some days were pretty tough and very demanding, a lot of military exercises under not the best conditions, a lot of physical things to deal with.

One day he decided he couldn’t take it anymore and so he brought right from the medical closet his chronic knee injury. His knee did ache him from time to time.
It was something that no doctor would deny, he did all the x-rays and the injury was confirmed and so he could get free of service when the activities were too tough.

He had an injury and he could use it on demand whenever necessary. Pacquiao after losing badly from Mayweather, I think used the same technique.

Yes, his shoulder injury is confirmed by the doctors and now has even got operated but a real warrior makes no excuses when losing neither uses old injuries on demand to cover about his loses.

If all this was made for fighting again Mayweather then I don’t know what to say except I am really disappointed.

Let me know what you think in the comments bellow.



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