Boxing Science: How Manny Pacquiao's Body Has Tricked Analysts and Opponents

Barerra and Morales were pretty much done by 2006 where as you had the likes of Casamayor, Castillo and Corrales kicking about at lightweight, Cotto and Hatton at light welter and Mayweather, Mosley, Williams and Margo at welter.

The competition was definitely better back then compared to when he did move up, not saying all or any of them would have beat him but he would have got better recognition if he had moved up back then I think.

He practically bypassed a poor lightweight division and junior welterweight division (that is better now to be fair) and is now in a poor welterweight division, not his fault but all were more stacked when he could have moved up a few years back.

 

Thats why Mayweather deserves slightly more credit then he gets for beating De La Hoya. As Mayweather could have been fighting at 140 rather then fighting at 154. Even with Baldomir, Mayweather could have stayed at 140 rather then fighting the WW linear champ who would outweighed him by 15pds. Of course those standards don't apply to Mayweather.

 

Hey ******s, stop comparing resumes and speaking of woulda shouldas. We have an interesting article here.

That was a good read. Thanks. Manny is just a freak of nature....8 inch wrists!!! Unbelievable for a man his height. I love collecting watches, and can relate to the correlation between height and wrist size. I have never heard of a man his height with wrists that large....just wow.

I also had a friend in high school who was pretty short and had a really thick frame. He had big wrists and big calves just like the Pacman, although I don't think as much to the extreme as Pac. A bunch of us would always punch each others arms etc you know high school games, and I dreaded getting hit by him. He hit like a ton of bricks.

 

I did not say they were the best challenges. They were the biggest names. He stayed in 126-130 and basically helped to recreate some of the 80's Fab 4's magic.

 

yep. already knew that pac had big wrists but i didn't know that his wrists were actually bigger than most heavyweights out there.

it was also interesting to learn that pac has the same wrist size as mike tyson and joe louis as well as he currently fighting very near his optimal fighting weight.

 

GREAT EXCUSES. doesn't explain why he punked out of the drug testing. you people are all groupies. get a life

 

Was just about to post this!

Great article and will probably change the way I predict fights with guys moving up in weight (cher-ching).

Pac's wrist is the same size as Tysons?? Holy ****!! This made me feel much more confident about a Pac-Mayweather fight.

 

Good Read

 

There was a tale of the tape when he fought Hatton , in every dimension apart from fist he was actually bigger than Hatton, I know it didnt look it but I think thats because he carries less body fat than Hatton.

 

Who else plugged their own numbers into that equation?

I'm really ****ing underweight still- I'm 148ish when I should be 175

EDIT: I wonder how much PWill should be...

 

HBO should start including the wrist size on the tale of the tape.

 

The wrist is one of the only places on the body that isn't covered by muscle and fat, or contains brain, so it's a good indicator of general bone diameter. Height generally shows bone length. Those bones need to filled with flesh. I'm not so surprised by the article as surprised by the shock that has been expressed.

Isn't that why wrist measurements are published in the first place? To reflect build?

 

It was a good read but it does raise some questions.

Have Manny's wrists always been so large?
Were they 8" when he was a flyweight?
If not at what rate have they grown & are they still growing?
Did they grow a lot after he moved to Wildcard?

The author has only taken the measurements of a few champions, a more representative study would be to do a lot of champs (100s if not 1000s) & Im sure there would be counter examples to the hard-punching large-wrist conjecture. Even if is there is a statistical correlation that doesnt prove it as fact.

FTR I do think that Manny has been aided by legal/illegal 'supplements' of some description.

 

I did do a very quick search on a few fighters wrist size, but couldn't find much. I did find however, Trinidad had significantly smaller wrist size than we would expect for a big puncher who moved up to middleweight. Also, I haven't been able to measure my wrist, but I'm afraid I'll be dissapointed with the result :roll:

 

i have no problem accepting that some people are genetically gifted, because i consider myself one. even at a younger age i was able to lift heavy objects, run faster and jump higher than the average guy of my size. at 5'8" i can reach the 10 ft height basketball ring. i haven't gone to the gym for more than 3 years but my muscles are still firm.