IMO, the only chance for Pac to win this fight is to K.O. Spence early before Spence can come back to stress Pacman in the second half of the fight. The first half of the fight is essential for Pacman to do something.
You should be happy to see Pacquiao getting beaten by Duterte since Pacman will come back to boxing sport again.
I think it's dumb or at best wishful thinking to expect the version of Manny we last saw in the ring against Thurman to show up. He's 42 y/o and is coming off a two year layoff for goodness sake and that's bloody ancient for a smaller weight fighter. Even if people think he looks good on the pads or in these training videos it doesn't mean anything because the truth (no pun intended) with be revealed in the ring. Povetkin looked half decent on the pads during the pre-fight workout for the Whyte fights but when it came fight time he was clearly a mere shell of himself and his decline was frankly alarming even though he was already well past his prime long before then. 42 is very old for a lighter weight fighter and two years is a very long time for a 40 + y/o. He could be shot to smithereens for all we know.
That's why I said above that Pacquiao will have to do something quickly in the first half of the fight before Spence gets his feet on the pedal in the second one. As we saw in his last fight against Thurman that Pacquiao became faded in the late rounds.
I won't be surprised if he hurts or drops Spence because even an ancient Manny probably still has his ACFBLSP aka Asian Chi-Force Bruce Lee Shocking Power and Spence was pulling ouch that really hurt faces whenever Pity Pat Porter caught him clean.
He may drop Spence at least once enroute to a UD. Spence is just way too slow and flat footed. Slower than Thurman...
How gosh darn crazy is it that nearly 18 years after Manny he b itch man slapped MAB at gosh darn featherweight we are seriously discussing his chances against a young unbeaten buck at welterweight!!!
It's indeed crazy though Pac has defied the odds so many times, from his break out fight vs MAB to his dismantling of the much bigger De La Hoya to that crazy run at welter when he was just dominating far bigger men, to the win over Thurman. But I think this is too much to expect even from him. From what I've seen Pac has declined since the Thurman fight, I've never seen him look as slow as he has in preparation for a fight. Speed was always his biggest edge over Spence. Pac's going to have to show far more guile and rings smarts if he's to beat the odds this time.
