By Chris Williams: Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe reacted to Manny Pacquiao’s loss to WBA welterweight champion Yordenis Ugas from last Saturday by noting how quiet all the so-called experts were who had been saying how Manny was going to have a walk in the park.
Ellerbe notes that Pacquiao went through a lot in the second half of his fight with Keith Thurman in 2019, taking a ton of punishment in the process of squeaking by with a narrow 12 round split decision victory.
It’s possible that Pacquiao’s war with Thurman played a factor in why he looked so slow in his reflexes and couldn’t move the way he used to in his fight with Ugas.
Had Pacquiao come back four or five months after his fight with Thurman to continue his career, we might have seen the same level of deterioration as we witnessed last Saturday in his loss to Yordenis.
Ellerbe sounds off on Pacquiao loss
Excellent game plan by Salas and Ugas perfected it to a T. All these experts are kinda quiet today, really happy for @YordenisUgas and Louie Decubas.
— Leonard Ellerbe (@LEllerbe) August 22, 2021
“The second half of that Thurman fight was brutal. I mean brutal. I had the best seat in the house, sitting in the corral. If you know, you know💯” said Ellerbe about Pacquiao taking punishment in the second half of the Thurman bout in 2019.
“Manny has had an incredible career, and he doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. You can’t continue to push that envelope when you’re an older fighter. Hope he does the right thing; he will always be a legend💯” added Ellerbe.
All the armchair experts have seemingly blown town with Yordenis (27-4, 12 KOs) shocking the world with his 12 round unanimous decision over Pacquiao (62-8-2, 39 KOs) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The 42-year-old Pacquiao will have to face reality after getting thoroughly beaten by the replacement opponent for Errol Spence Jr in Ugas, a fighter he was confident that he could beat on two weeks’ notice.
After the fight, Pacquiao sounded like he was giving a trial run on a retirement speech when he spoke at the podium at the post-fight press conference, saying that he has to walk away from the sport due to his body and his responsibility to his job in the Philippines in helping the people.
Pacquiao is currently a senator, but it’s possible that he could be elected to the presidency of the Philippines in early 2022.
Pacquiao says he overtrained
In his post-fight press conference last Saturday, Pacquiao mentioned that he’d been sparring 32 rounds per day in camp, which was more than what he’d done in preparation for the Thurman fight.
Interestingly, in an interview two weeks ago, Pacquiao talked about increasing his sparring rounds from 25 to 32, and he said that his coaches didn’t want him to work so hard.
“In my heart, I want to continue to fight, but I also have to consider my body,” said Pacquiao at the post-fight press conference last Saturday night after his loss to Ugas.
“Too much hard work in training,” said Pacquiao on why he suffered leg cramps during the fight. “I run in the mountain and also doing 32 rounds every day, so I don’t know,” said Pacquiao about the 32 rounds of sparring that he’d done during the camp.
This suggests that Pacquiao may have overdone it and would have been better off listening to his coaches, who are there for a reason.
The real question is, was Pacquiao coaching himself during the camp? When you get a fighter doing what he wants to do instead of listening to their coaches, this is the end result.
With that said, Pacquiao probably would have still lost to Ugas even if he had done fewer rounds of sparring, but we’ll never know.
His legs being cramped up is a sign of overwork. He might have needed a couple of weeks of rest before the fight instead of training hard with the road work right up to the day of the fight.
If Pacquiao does come back, he should take it easy in camp and do less road work and much fewer sparring rounds. For a fighter in his 40s, it was insane for Pacquiao to be working as hard as he did.