LAS VEGAS—As it so often does in boxing, Saturday’s Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. welterweight unification fight will be decided by speed, not power.
Both fighters believe that critical advantage belongs to them, Pacquiao making clear he thinks he’s not only the fastest fighter Mayweather has faced but also the fastest in the fight. Mayweather scoffs at that notion but then again his assumption is Tokyo’s bullet train would run a distant second to him if the tracks were surrounded by ropes. In the end, whoever’s right wins the fight.
If boxing was simply about power, Arnold Schwarzenegger would have been heavyweight champion for a decade, but boxing is not that simple. It is a brutal science and a dark art, a sport where quickness of mind, foot and hand is what decides the day, not how much you can bench press.
For Pacquiao, that means several things. He must be quick enough to get inside Mayweather’s five-inch reach advantage without getting constantly hit with pot shots and hard jabs to the body that stop him in his tracks. Once inside, he must beat Mayweather to the punch with the quickness of his hands and then, most important, get out laterally rather than hop straight back to force Mayweather to alter his angles of pursuit and not simply use his quickness to move forward before Pacquiao can retreat.
Most important, he cannot leave himself too often standing in front of Mayweather at punching distance if his hands aren’t moving and must be ever vigilant to avoid the lead right hands and right-hand counters that Juan Manuel Marquez so often used to damage him in their four meetings. Despite Pacquiao scoring six knockdowns against Chris Algieri in his last outing, trainer Freddie Roach was irate because he too often left himself in front of Algieri or following him around, two things Algieri could not turn to his advantage but fatal mistakes against Mayweather. “If Manny follows him, I’ll kill him,’’ Roach said. “That’s how he gets you with that check hook.’’
The check hook is one of Mayweather’s most dangerous weapons, one born as much from his dexterity and timing as from his power.
It was most obviously declared in the 10th round of his fight with Ricky Hatton when Hatton lunged forward and Mayweather pivoted on his front foot while swinging his back foot 180 degrees to the left. That allowed him to land flush with full force and then be gone as Hatton tumbled half-blind into the turnbuckle and then to the floor. The fight was over seconds later.
Mayweather often sets this up by consistently jabbing to the body with his left hand, causing you more and more to drop your lead hand to block it. If that combines with his opponent lunging in aggressively, as Pacquiao sometimes does, Mayweather then feints and launches the check hook, using your own momentum coming forward to create the opening and his agility to add force to the punch. Catch a few of those and everything changes…or the lights go out.
What Mayweather has to worry about is Pacquiao’s fast hands and high work rate. Although that has dropped from an average output of around 75 punches per round when he was at his best to around 60 per round since he was knocked out by Marquez several years ago, 60 punches from someone as dangerous as Pacquiao is a high output that makes counter-punching dangerous.
This is especially true for Mayweather because he waits to counter until you’re done throwing. If Pacquiao is fast enough to get his punches off and then escape laterally, changing his angle of retreat before Mayweather can reach him, it will be a Rubik’s cube of a problem for Mayweather. For that to be the case, however, Roach has to be right about a key component.
“I think I have the faster fighter,” he said. “People really can’t deal with Manny’s speed. You can’t get used to it. Marquez is the only one who figured us out but he counters when you’re throwing. Mayweather doesn’t throw back until you’re through. If you get out of there, you’ll do OK.
“We can win a decision because we can outscore him with combinations, but you can not stay in the pocket too long or you get hit. And you can not follow Mayweather around. Manny did that against Algieri. It was horrible. He can’t make that mistake.’’
Or be drawn into it as Mayweather did to Oscar de la Hoya. That night de la Hoya was setting the terms of engagement in the early rounds with his hard jab and ability to cut Mayweather off or retreat using angles that wouldn’t allow Mayweather time to counter him.
But halfway through the fight, Mayweather began to break down his concentration and as de la Hoya’s focus waned the dance became one with Mayweather leading and de la Hoya following.
In the end, de la Hoya lost his way and a close decision. Mayweather’s agility and speed made that happen, wearing him out mentally and then breaking him down physically.
Can he do the same to Manny Pacquiao? Speed will tell but don’t bet against the bigger and probably faster man—Floyd Mayweather Jr.
By Ron Borges | Boston Herald
Image credits: AP