Manny Pacquiao Vs Floyd Mayweather, JR – If They Fight Ten Times, Mayweather Will Always Win

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By Donny “Golden Boy” Lalonde

In order to speak to the let down of the Manny Pacquiao Vs Floyd Mayweather, JR. fight I am going to express my personal feelings about the fight. In an unusually accurate prediction I picked Mayweather, JR. to win the fight by unanimous decision. It just seemed to me that Pacquiao was not big enough to break Mayweather, JR. down and as we all know, he is always happy getting a win instead of taking chances to get a knock down. So really fight fans, how else could this fight end? Pacquiao was not about to outbox and out hustle Mayweather, JR. as his being monitored so heavily how could he have the energy he has for so much of his career where that scrutiny wasn’t so intense.

Manny is by nature too small to be overly effective against a naturally larger man like Mayweather, JR. Floyd is just too skilled to be overpowered by someone of Manny’s natural size. Volume as Freddie had tried to extol out of Manny was his only chance but with less “energy” Manny couldn’t sum up the energy he needed. These are the fundamental issues I saw that defined the fight.
One other aspect that was evident to me was that when Manny tried to work his way in, Mayweather, JR. was just too smart, strong and powerful for Pacquiao to be able to be effective. Floyd was more powerful than Manny and his team realized it I feel. Whenever Manny tried to “get in” he would be caught at least partially with a clip of a left hook from Floyd. Or he would get caught with a right hand coming in as Floyd’s footwork positioned him to land and Manny to be vulnerable as a knowledgeable and skilled orthodox fighter will always expose a southpaw this way by keeping his lead foot outside of the lead foot of the southpaw.

Say what you will about Floyd, skill and knowledge in a squared circle are two things you cannot take away from him. Given the endurance by not losing excessive amount of weight, more than I needed to, this was similar logic I had going into the Sugar Ray Leonard fight. Given my natural size advantage with the stamina I normally had at my natural weight, Ray’s only chance was my coming in weakened, which I foolishly did. Floyd didn’t have to compromise his stamina and he would, as he says, beat Manny 100% of the time if they were to fight any number more times.

I felt the decision was 100% accurate. I felt it was predictable and I felt that had Floyd fought Manny 6 years or so earlier, the result would have been the same as long as Floyd held onto the say no to drugs for Manny mantra that limited Manny’s endurance/punch volume.

I don’t say this with any “inside” information, I think the punch volume speaks for itself. Floyd hurt Manny more than it appeared and kept him off guard. These are skills that Floyd has and Manny didn’t adjust. Volume was the solution Freddie had, and I feel he was accurate in his guidance, but Manny couldn’t get close enough inside without being clipped by a punch on the way in to throw him off and or hurt by a right hand, so it was a precarious move at best. After being hurt in the early rounds attempting it, Manny was second guessing himself from that point on.
As to the “let down” people expected more than was what logical from Manny. Unreasonable expectations are quite often more the reason for a letdown than lack of performance. I didn’t hear any of the writers speaking of this natural size difference. Or power that Floyd has that would keep an aggressive fighter off of Floyd unless he is big enough to force his way past Floyd’s power for his natural weight class.

Manny never had that, it was an illusion supported by everyone out of lack of knowledge or lack of foresight. I think the “let down” is more of a lesson in the ART of boxing and loss of an emotional rush of seeing Manny overpower the “Bad Boy” of boxing. It is going to take someone much bigger and stronger to overpower Floyd and that would take Floyd stepping up in size of opponent, someone like Gennandy “GGG” Golovkin if he could get Floyd out of his comfort zone and move up giving an advantage up instead of getting one. Why would he?

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