its simple. its his reaction time. i see all these crazy theories floating around, mixed with excuses, mixed with crazy imaginations. its not that complicated. the first and worst sign that a fighter is over the hill is a drop in reaction times. it now takes longer for his brain to send a command to his physical body, muscles to receive it and react, all while maintaining balance. you can usually tell from their anticipation, and reaction to jabs, if youre already familiar with the fighters normal speed. or you can compare with video of them when prime. thats why in the martinez- murray rd by rd i said canelo needs to go after sergio immediately, hes washed up. it wasnt his knee, although that didnt help, but i had seen his reaction times drop. watch the fight again with that in mind and it becomes obvious. people look for a drop in overall speed to determine if a fighter is past it, but that can be misleading. a fighter can retain most of his speed, but lose his reaction time. the loss in speed comes between the point your brain computes that hes about to pump a jab into your face, and the millisecond your body starts moving out of the way. when he punches, all we see is the point where motion starts, to the end of the punch. and that might not change at all. what all that means, is that if pac initiates the action, he is still almost as fast as he used to be. but if he has to react to the action, he is no longer elite level.
The first time I've seen this happen was when Pac fought JMM the third time. I was so used to the back and forth between JMM and Pac that I clearly saw the decline in his reactions when the trilogy happened. There were A LOT of times that I swear in the past Pac would've countered or threw a punch but he didn't. And this was pre-KTFO6 so it definitely has nothing to do with him being tentative.
sometimes it can be a bad camp, illness, unfocused, whatever... but pac didnt look bad outside that reaction time. if pac were more of a counterpunching style, we would be saying he cant pull the trigger anymore. but since his whole game is offense, hes gonna start getting hit where he used to do the hittin.
Well Pacquiao was only 32 in that fight so he can't have declined unless he had been in tough fights or hadn't lived the life and he hadn't done either of those things
Dude wtf are you talking about? Pac absorbed tremendous punishment against Morales, Marquez, Cotto and Margarito all before KTFO6. If he was anybody else he'd have been called washed up after the 1st Morales fight. Considering the fact that everybody who ever fought besides Pacquiao is ruined after ring wars.
It's not just his reaction time that's gone. It's literally everything. You can be strong forever. Into your 50s you can still be physically strong. The problem is Pac never relied on strength anyways and there is a whole lot more to boxing than pure strength. And after 35 everything besides strength goes down the crapper.
He just didnt have enough time to prepare for a different opponent. And people complained about Bivol having 6 weeks.. lol
Age Weaker Uglier (disappearance of subtle skin) Slower reaction times Lower sperm count Lower testosterone & other hormones (declining endocrine system) The list goes on https://www.britannica.com/science/human-aging