Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao: IB's Keys to Success

Goddamn YouTube song-remover doesn't work. :twisted:

 

Turns out Mayweather adhered closer to my keys than Pacquiao.

The orthodox jab was sprinkled in effectively amongst the lead rights to break Pacquiao's rhythm and limit his output (actually kind of an understatement) and sure enough the check hook - or at least a fade-away/pivoting counter left hook if not exactly the same punch that sent Hatton face-first into a turnbuckle - first made its appearance circa the halfway mark. Floyd did use shuffling half-steps to preserve distance and his timing was impeccable, though he did fail to employ as much of the high guard defense as he should have, stubbornly remaining in the Philly shell even when that defense was getting repeatedly breached, and consequently got zapped with many a left hand lead, causing a few brief scares.

As for Pacquiao, his foot speed didn't match up with Mayweather's as expected (which he really needed it to in order to compensate for his legs being less educated and graceful) and he utterly failed to finish strong on his combos with a right hook, and his jabs were neither as stiff nor as plentiful as they ought to have been. (Shane Mosley and Mike Tyson even made live posts on social media during the fight saying that Pacquiao's best successes came when he threw lots of jabs at Floyd and that he floundered when he didn't. Sound familiar? Oscar De La Hoya to the courtesy phone, please...)

One thing by which I was surprised, that actually worked for Pacquiao and ran contrary to my keys, was that he largely eschewed the 1-1-2 in favor of a more compact and straightforward one-two. The right jab wasn't especially stiff or well-aimed but it was routinely just the one, followed immediately by a hard straight left cross. Floyd definitely wasn't expecting that. Pacquiao virtually always doubles the jab before the left cross, sometimes lazily pawing it, sometimes actually snapping it (part of my keys for him was to do the latter) - but he just threw out the manual altogether with a completely different look than Floyd or anybody else was expecting. Just conventional southpaw 1-2s. No time after the initial jab to squeeze in a counter, set your defense, nothing. The jab was a warning shot - GTFO the way or you will be nailed by this big ass left.

 

Yes, and his manner of footwork (ingrained over years, and something you can't really alter in one training camp) doesn't lend itself to indecision - which is what plagued him throughout, barring his off-and-on ball-to-wall approach from the fourth through eighth rounds - and that is where he really suffered.

That pick-up and immediate limp put-down of the ball of the right foot, that kind of jerky gas-and-then-brake motion that is every driving instructor's worst nightmare when giving a kid their road test, killed him. Stepping halfway in but not committing, just leaving yourself all squared up directly center line in Mayweather's strike zone - that was imbecilic. Pacquiao brought about 5 rounds' worth (less, actually, since he didn't go all-out in any of those five rounds for a full three minutes) of his old killer instinct to a 12-round match that was the most important of his life. :-(