By Jamal Dicky
You can tell the Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao super-fight is really huge because you have a lot of casual fans who don’t really follow the sport of boxing making predictions and acting like analysts.
The most popular question asked by casuals is, Can Floyd Mayweather handle Manny Pacquiao’s power?
This shows you they really don’t know anything about boxing. First of all, Floyd Mayweather has an iron chin, he has taken flush shots from hard hitters like Shane Mosley, Chop Chop Corley and Marcos Maidana, and never hit the canvas once, all three of those fighters hit much harder than Pacquiao. Manny Pacquiao hasn’t really knocked anyone out cold since the Ricky Hatton fight, where Hatton ran into the punch and gave the KO to him on a silver platter.
I used to believe Pacquiao had some power, but after further analyzing his fights, I realized he just throws a lot of punches and does damage by accumulation — he has no real one punch KO power.
Mayweather on the other hand is very economical with his punches, he rather focus on landing meaningful sharp shots and avoid getting hit. He exercises the sweet science in it’s purest form, the art of hit and not get hit.
If you really think about it, Mayweather actually has the power punching advantage over Pacquiao. Floyd doesn’t really sit on his shots, but in almost every fight he is able to prevent fighters from coming in reckless, that means he has enough pop to keep them off of him. Manny on the other hand throws many punches in bunches and throws with all his might but can’t even drop a flat foot boxer like Brandon Rios or a severely drained Oscar De La Hoya.
The reason Mayweather doesn’t seem to hurt his opponents or mark them up like Pacquiao does is because he has hand issues. Having a history of hand injuries will make you fight smarter and not break them in fights by going all out, but when he fights Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd, I believe he will show the world just how hard he really hits.
If Floyd sat on his shots and threw multiple flush combos on his opponents like Manny does, I almost guarantee he would have a higher KO percentage.
Floyd has power he just chooses to be defensive but when he does let his hands go he can do some serious damage just watch the fights he had with Diego Corrales, Arturo Gatti and Ricky Hatton, he stopped them all, and not to mention his KO of Victor Ortiz, if he had no power Ortiz would still be standing and not counted out.
If there is going to be a knockout, it’s going to come from Mayweather’s hands not Pacquiao’s because Floyd has shown his ability to take a shot is far superior to Manny’s. Floyd has never been knocked out let alone dropped, but Manny has hit the canvas many times, been hurt many times, knocked out many times, and put to sleep ice cold. Pacquiao’s only real shot to win is to try and outwork Floyd because I don’t see him hurting or let alone stopping Floyd on May 2nd.
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