I hear no shortage of folks out and about saying this Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight boils down pretty simplistically. Here?s the syrup; they say?Manny Pacquiao goes life and death with the Mexican counter-punching ace Juan Manuel Marquez when they glove up and Floyd Mayweather handled JMM like he was a neophyte sparring partner when they gloved up back in 2009.
Hmmm?makes some sense on the surface. Maybe even beneath that, if you figure that anything Marquez can do, Floyd can do a tick or two better. So, what about it, Freddie Roach; is it as simple as that? Because ?Money? manhandled Marquez, will he likely have the same sort of luck with ?Pac-Man??
How about if we apply the ?Fighter A (Manny Pacquiao) has trouble with Fighter B (Juan Manuel Marquez) every time and since Fighter C (Floyd Mayweather) had NO trouble with Fighter B, that means that Fighter A (Pacquiao) will have tons of trouble with ?Fighter C (Mayweather)? logic to a ?70s-era round robin, in which we?d think that since Fighter A (Ruben Olivares) had no trouble with Fighter B (Bobby Chacon) the first two times they met? Then, but of course, Fighter A should have no trouble dealing with Fighter C (Danny ?Little Red? Lopez), because, c?mon, Fighter C got stopped by Fighter B when they met?but nooooo?when Olivares met Lopez in ?75, ?Little Red? got the W (KO 7). Long story short?or is it short story long??styles make fights and you simply cannot reduce a scrap like Mayweather vs. Pacquiao into such simple deductive reasoning.
Not surprisingly, Roach, who is in China this week counting down to his flyweight contender Zou Shiming?s tangle versus Thailander Amnat Ruenroeng on Saturday (5 p.m. ET, on HBO2), begs to differ. Apples and oranges, Freddie told me, and boxing has a trillion examples to support his reasoning.
Sure, it can provide hints?and indeed, on May 2, it may play out like Team Mayweather is saying it will. Floyd might simply have Manny?s number like he had Marquez?s and as Marquez had at that moment when he caught Pac-Man with a brain-rattler right in Dec. 2012.
Roach, who campaigned as a pro from 1978-1986 and has been named BWAA Trainer of the Year seven times, reminded me. ?Styles make fights. [Miguel] Cotto went the distance with Mayweather but didn?t go the distance with Manny. That ?Fighter A-Fighter B? logic is way too simple. Manny is a whole different animal. Styles make fights. Every fight is different!?
Point taken?and accepted, as we must see how this plays out because the variables are numerous and fate can have a way of throwing an unhittable curveball at us when we were thinking fastball all the while.
Here?s a variable: Freddie told me he likes Manny?s chances a tick more with Floyd Sr. running the ship, rather than Uncle Roger. ?Floyd [Jr.] has had more success with Roger than anybody,? Roach said. ?With Senior, Floyd is more defensive and we know maybe he?ll run a bit more. Yes, Roger is the A-side of that team, not Floyd Sr.?
Check back on my Twitter timeline from more gold from ?Dedham Freddie,? as he talks about the expectations of the masses for Mayweather-Pacquiao and why maybe ? just maybe ? casuals and those parachuting into boxing for just one evening might want to do their homework on Mayweather before they start thinking they know what type of fight they will see.
