mayweather vs pacquiao live on pay per view ppv boxing fight, Floyd Mayweather is 47-0 and Manny Pacquiao
fight weekend one of the best defensive fighters in modern boxing
history. (AFP Photo/Frederic J. Brown) Please be aware that tickets for
the May 2, 2015, Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight are not yet
Volume 2 of the Mayweather-Pacquiao
mailbag is back, with my answers to your questions about the big May 2
welterweight title fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
There is still no information available
about ticket sales, though Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe
promises that will come this week. Rest assured, when the announcement
is made about tickets and closed circuit seats, etc., you can count upon
Yahoo Sports to have all the information for you.
I’ll keep the mailbags coming right up
to the fight. If you want me to answer your question, please tweet it
with the hash tag #MayPacYahoo. I’ll get to as many of them as I can
before the fight, assuming there is a steady stream of good questions.
I figured I’d might as well start off with an easy one, even though it doesn’t have very much to do with the fight. Roger
Mayweather
was easily – easily – the best of the three trainers as a fighter.
Uncle Roger won major belts at super featherweight and super
lightweight, and was one of the top fighters of his day.
Neither Floyd Sr. nor Freddie Roach come close to matching him for in-ring accomplishments.
I don’t think it proves a thing. There is no question that Team Pacquiao
completely blew it with its response to the drug testing request in
2010. Pacquiao’s people made it look as if they’d had something to hide
and it was a disastrous mistake in judgment.
That said, I think Pacquiao should be
praised for doing what he did to make the fight, not questioned for it.
In 2012, not long before he signed a deal to fight Miguel Cotto,
Mayweather made a highly publicized phone call to Paacquiao, who was at
home in the Philippines at the time.
Mayweather offered Pacquiao a flat fee
of $40 million for the fight, which at the time would have represented
the largest purse by far of Pacquiao’s career. Many of Mayweather’s fans
were outraged when Pacquiao didn’t accept, and used it as proof that
Pacquiao ducked the fight.
On some levels, it was a compelling argument.
But ask yourself this: Would you accept
40 percent (or less) of what you feel you’re worth if you’re offered a
job? Let’s say that in your area, the job you’re being considered for
pays $50,000 with potential bonuses based on performance. You need the
job, but someone offers you a flat $20,000 salary with no bonuses or any
other source of income. Would you accept?
Pacquiao is now going to make more than $100 million for the fight.
He continued to make astronomical amounts of money after turning down
that offer from Mayweather by fighting Timothy Bradley twice, Juan
Manuel Marquez, Brandon Rios and Chris Algieri.
And by waiting, he got the deal that made the most sense and secured
the future of many upcoming generations of the Pacquiao family.
I don’t think either fighter was ducking
the fight. This is an almost unprecedented type of bout in boxing
history and there were a lot of outside influences that made it
difficult to get an acceptable deal done.
I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Clean. I haven’t seen that notion put forward anywhere. But your point is 100 percent on the money.
The reason the fight is so big and attracting so much interest is because neither guy has faced anyone quite like the other.
In Pacquiao, Mayweather is facing an
opponent with the kind of speed and power that he has never seen.
Mayweather has faced numerous hard hitters, including an unbeaten Diego
Corrales back in 2001. But when it comes to a combination of speed and
power, no one can touch what Pacquiao can bring, even at this stage.
In addition, Pacquiao is an aggressive
fighter who will pressure and throw a lot of hard shots and won’t so
easily settle into the rhythm that Mayweather would like.
That being said, Pacquiao has never
faced an opponent remotely close to Mayweather. First, he’s fighting a
legitimately bigger opponent in Mayweather, who is just as quick as him,
if not quicker, and is by far the best defensive fighter he’s ever
faced. Mayweather is a master of angles and strategy and has a variety
of punches, such as the pull counter and check hook that will create
issues for Pacquiao.
It’s a fascinating match from both angles and it’s why the world has been so intensely interested in it for so long.
I could go a couple of ways with this
one, Dr. X. The fact that Mayweather was willing to let a reporter watch
sparring, while Pacquiao was not, is very interesting to me. It’s
business as usual in the Mayweather camp. Things are a bit different
than normal in Pacquiao’s camp. I’m not sure what to read into that, but
I thought I’d note it and let you make of it what you will.
But when I really think of it, the
biggest thing perhaps that surprised me from what I’ve seen and know was
how Mayweather sparring partner Maurice Lee cracked Mayweather with a
clean shot in the face on the day I was there.
This is boxing, and guys get hit, even
great defenders like Mayweather. But I was surprised that an untested
young fighter like Lee was able to land so flush and clean as he did.
Don’t make it more than it is:
Mayweather wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t in danger of going down. And it’s not
like Lee was dominating him in any way.
But I found it unusual just because Mayweather is so doggone close to perfect that when he’s not, it is cause for attention.
Nothing. If in the event one of the
fighters is hurt and unable to make it to the post on May 2, they’ll
look to reschedule at the earliest opportunity. That, of course, is
something that no one hopes comes to pass.
The problem with a training camp injury
is that no one can know in advance how serious it is and how long it
will take to heal. So, all they can do is rely upon the doctors and the
fighter himself to let them know.
So, if there is an injury that forces the postponement, they’ll deal with it when it happens.
I’m not sure where these rumors get
started, but they’re just that. Rumors. There is ZERO truth to it. The
fight is happening on May 2 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The only way
that wouldn’t be the case is, as I answered above, if one of the
fighters gets injured.
But both are fully healthy now and working out regularly in camp.
It’s bizarre that we’re so close to the
fight and tickets aren’t on sale, but it’s one of the many things that
make this event so unique.
This is a really good question and not
one easily answered. I agree generally with your point that power is
generally the last thing to leave a fighter.
Let’s look at Pacquiao’s record during
the Freddie Roach Era, which began with the Lehlo Ledwaba fight on June
23, 2001. Pacquiao is 25-3-2 with 14 knockouts under Roach. That’s a
knockout percentage of 46.7 under Roach’s direction. But it has declined
tremendously in the last five years. From the Ledwaba fight through the
Cotto fight, Pacquiao was 18-1-2 with 14 knockouts under Roach. That is
a 66.7 percent knockout rate. Beginning with the Joshua Clottey fight
in 2010, Pacquiao is 7-2 with zero knockouts.
Does that indicate Pacquiao has lost his power?
Well, perhaps. How much he’s lost is the
question, and maybe there are other factors at play here. He never came
close to knocking out Clottey, Timothy Bradley (over 24 rounds in two
fights), Juan Manuel Marquez in their Nov. 12, 2011, bout, or Brandon
Rios.
He easily – easily – could have gotten a
stoppage against Antonio Margarito in 2010, and Margarito trainer
Robert Garcia received some justified criticism for not stopping the
bout himself. Pacquiao knocked Chris Algieri down six times, but Algieri
moved so much it was very difficult to get the finish.
Pacquiao was also on the verge of a
knockout against Marquez in their Dec. 8, 2012, bout, but got a bit
reckless and got knocked out himself. Pacquiao had Shane Mosley in great
trouble in the third round after a knockdown, but Mosley fought
extraordinarily defensively after that. When a fighter is mostly intent
upon surviving, as Clottey was throughout his fight with Pacquiao and as
Mosley was in the last nine rounds, knockouts rarely come.
I think there has been a slight decline
in his combination punching. It’s also matchup-oriented. Many of the
spectacular finishes he got – Cotto, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton –
came against offensive-oriented fighters. Guys who box and are
defensive-oriented aren’t as likely to be knocked out.
He still hits extremely hard. Bradley
has told me that on numerous occasions, but I think you can attribute
some of his issues to a decrease in his own aggression, a slight drop in
his combination punching and the style of his opponents.
I just hate questions about rumors,
because 99.999999999999 percent of the time the rumors have no
foundation in fact and are simply the figment of someone’s imagination.
One of the things I find amazing is the
rumors about what is going on in sparring, particularly in Pacquiao’s
camp. No one has seen Pacquiao spar, except for a handful of his closest
friends/advisers. Roach boots everyone out of the gym when it’s
sparring time, yet there are reports about what is going on inside.
Take all of it with a grain of salt.
Both men appear to be in magnificent condition. They’re healthy and
they’re preparing like they should.
Be skeptical of anything a source says in a fight like this, because it’s often simply made up.
There is no plan in place to officially
release the results of the tests. I will check with USADA’s Travis
Tygart to see if I can get the dates and results of the tests done. Only
ones ordered by the Nevada Athletic Commission are public, however, and
so they’re under no obligation to release test results on ones they’ve
voluntarily agreed to do.
Well, that’s it for today’s mailbag.
Again, if you want me to consider your question for use in an upcoming
mailbag, post it on Twitter with the hash tag #MayPacYahoo
Finally, I’ve included the commercial
for the fight below. Let me know what you think of it in the comments.
Are you impressed? Underwhelmed? Does it get you fired up to watch?
Please let me know your thoughts on it.
