Some Thoughts on Mayweather/Pacquiao

This is one of those fights that instinctively excites most boxing fans -- two men with completely antithetical styles and personalities, and such a sharp contrast always results in potential for drama.

I made a

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back in 2007, speculating on what a fighter would need to beat Mayweather. This is the list I came up with at the time:

Is it me, or does Pac have nearly every single one of those things?

Getting back to recent events -- Pac's victory over Hatton was beautiful, but also dangerously misleading. Mayweather is a completely different beast to Hatton in nearly every way. Hatton's loss was due to a handful of factors, but one of the most significant ones is the fact that he telegraphs his punches. As Roach noticed, when Hatton throws that odd mix between a hook and a jab, he momentarily coils beforehand -- shifts his body to the left for torque -- and fast fighters who pick up on this have an utterly tempting target to sharpshoot. Case in point:

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The same motion. Coil, release, and is hit with a solid lead-hook counter while in the midst of punching, resulting in adding his own momentum to the force of his foe's hook and ironically helping them to knock him out.

Now, what makes Mayweather interesting is that his motions are often the opposite -- he rarely telegraphs at all. An example is his fight with Corrales; the left-hook landed again and again because Mayweather understood that speed is only one facet of a good punch. You also require timing, distance and form. Due to this, Pac certainly won't be able to time Mayweather anywhere near as well as he did with Hatton, and even if Mayweather makes a mistake he's normally fast enough to move away or cover up in time.

On the other hand, Mayweather's favourite strategy is to sit on the ropes in his shoulder-roll stance and slip/weave punches while looking for counters. You saw him do this against Hoya, but he wouldn't be able to do this against Pac. Pac is faster, more explosive, and sharper than that version of Hoya, and if Mayweather sat on the ropes Pac would fire off that deadly straight-left right through his guard, or use his improved right-hook to sneak around it. Roach's strategy was actually very sound in the Hoya fight, but his fighter was lacking, as he was so faded from his prime -- Pac is younger than Mayweather, strong, and definitely able to carry out any gameplan Roach devises at this point, due to his sheer athleticism. Mayweather would have to use constant movement, ala the Corrales fight, and box off the back foot, and when doing this against someone who can close the range like Pac...you have a very exciting fight on your hands.

Mayweather has had trouble with southpaws, regardless of what his hardcore fans may say. He was briefly stunned by Corley, and Judah technically knocked him down (a flash KD at most, but still a KD) with a short right-hook counter, the exact same punch that Pac has gotten so adept at throwing. Judah also stunned Mayweather with a jab-jab-left-straight combination. Something important to note here -- firstly, Mayweather's shoulder-roll stance left him completely open to the punch, as it went right down the pipe. Secondly, the left-straight has always been Pac's signature punch -- he knocked Marquez down with it again and again, turned Hoya's face into porridge with it and Roach went as far as to say that Pac used to rely on it to the extent that he was a 'one-handed' fighter. It's safe to say that he has a mean, mean left-straight, and one must wonder how Mayweather would deal with this.

Another notable point of the Judah fight (but not often discussed) is when the commentating Lennox Lewis offers his belief that the southpaw left-uppercut is the answer to Mayweather's best punch, his right-straight. Judah didn't have the timing or training necessary to pull this off, but what if Roach were to concentrate completely on having Pac counter the straight-right with an uppercut? People can say that Pac doesn't HAVE an uppercut, but did he have a good right-hook back when he first exploded on the scene? Nope. Now, if Pac can master this counter, and get the timing down in the fight (admittedly difficult) then Mayweather's best weapon against a southpaw would be compromised. All it would take is one great counter, and Mayweather would be hesitant about throwing the right-hand afterwards, and that hesitation slows a fighter down and stops him from relaxing and performing at his best.

Of course, a lot of this speculation changes upon the weight that they fight at -- I'm assuming it will be 140, where Pac can be at his best, but I would expect Mayweather to try and hinder him by only offering a higher weight, assuming he even takes the fight at all.

Either way, I definitely want this match to happen; it will be the biggest event in years, a genuine superfight for the general public and the fans.

 

Cheers for reading it all, guys.

I think Floyd would definitely watch the Pac/Marquez fights more than once. He would be a fool not to study them in detail. He has the talent and skill to do even better than Marquez, but there are a few questions hanging over him -- what would he do, for example, if he got knocked down and hurt like Marquez was? Would he be able to keep Pac off him in the same way? Some fighters get up from knockdowns and go into a shell or back off -- others come roaring right back, to try and take the pace with sudden aggression. What would Mayweather do? Uncharted territory right there.

 

I would go further and say that the uppercut is generally the hardest punch to land in the sport, full stop -- against a defensive expert like Mayweather it certainly would be very, very hard to land well. I think Pac has the speed and timing to do it, though, especially if Roach makes him practice it regularly. Mayweather is so used to casually pot-shotting people slower than him that it would also probably surprise him to see someone trying to hit him while he's in the midst of throwing his right, too.

It's true that I largely neglected Pac's weaknesses. I should have gone into that more, but the thread isn't really intended as a full breakdown of the match -- it's more like a few of my thoughts on things that interest me the most about the stylistic clash. I'm not even sure I could do a full breakdown, when considering the bewildering amount of factors to consider for this match. I'd forgotten about Mayweather's reach advantage, though -- that'll definitely be a problem.

Good point, yet another thing I'd forgotten is that Mayweather indeed changed his guard around throughout that fight, mostly using a high, tight style. When Judah nailed him with the left-straight, however, Mayweather had temporarily reverted to his usual shoulder-roll style beforehand. Regardless, I actually think Pac would have an easier time if Mayweather employed that high guard again -- I think the reason Mayweather used it is because he was patiently waiting for Judah to tire while breaking him down slowly. (After the fight he made a point to call him a 'front-runner', saying that he knew that Judah would 'gass out'.) This strategy wouldn't work against someone with the stamina and mental strength of Pac, so I think Mayweather would have to use his shoulder-roll and move constantly. He could, of course, go on to prove me completely wrong by using the Judah strategy and winning...I'd be very surprised if he won in that fashion, though. I also make him the favourite in the matchup.