Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao May 2015, Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be too good for Manny Pacquiao on May 2, Mayweather Jr. waves to his fans at MGM grand hotel back on Sept 12,2014, during the weigh in with Marcos Maidana. It was finally announce by Mayweather Jr. that the long awaited fight with Manny Pacquiao is official and will happen on May 2nd at the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas. The world of Twitter was overloaded Feb. 20 when it became known the fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao was a done deal. One particular tweet was thought-provoking. It came from actor Freddie Prinze Jr., who tweeted, “i already saw grudge match.
Hyperbole? Sure. But while pondering who’s going to win this welterweight title-unification fight May 2 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas (on HBO and Showtime pay-per-view), one also has to wonder what might have been had the two been able to come to terms when the bout was first discussed more than five years ago. We could have been looking at an all-time great trilogy that began when the fighters were in their primes. Instead, we’re getting a fight between a 38-year-old Mayweather and a 36-year-old Pacquiao. Thus the rather funny sarcasm by Prinze. Pacquiao is not what he was in 2009, the year he viciously knocked out Ricky Hatton in the second round and smacked around Miguel Cotto before stopping Cotto in the 12th. Mayweather - though still undefeated and still the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter - has probably lost about a quarter of a step defensively. He’s getting hit a little bit now. These are not your average aging fighters, though. Pacquiao and Mayweather are all-time greats and there is nothing that says they can’t come up with a gem of a fight. As long as Mayweather is willing to take some chances - and he will - this could turn into a thriller that will have longtime boxing fans thinking of the days when Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler beat up on one another. That’s asking a lot, but Mayweather and Pacquiao know a lot is expected of them. If they can provide a performance to remember in the richest fight in history, their names will live forever famously in the annals of boxing. Remember the welterweight title-unification fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad Jr. in 1999? Everyone was expecting a hard-hitting bout that would contain some toe-to-toe action. Instead, De La Hoya stuck and moved for nine rounds and ran for three, and the highly anticipated fight between the world’s two greatest welterweights at the time turned out to be a 12-round stinker won by Trinidad via majority decision.
We don’t need that here. Mayweather will have more to do with how this fight unfolds than Pacquiao because he is one of the most gifted all-around boxers in half a century. If Mayweather wants this fight to contain some toe-to-toe exchanges, it will. If he doesn’t, it won’t. But again, the feeling here is that Mayweather won’t want to use a stage of this size to go out there and put people to sleep. His ego is so big, he’ll open it up. He’s going to surprise people by actually trying to knock out Pacquiao at some point during the first half of the fight because he is a very accurate puncher and he knows that Pacquiao’s defense is not terrific and that he can be hurt. A knockout by Mayweather in this fight would make him more insufferable than usual, but he definitely wants it. As for Pacquiao, he better hope that Mayweather has lost another quarter of a step or so defensively by fight-time. Pacquiao is going to have difficulty landing a clean punch. He will, but not enough of them to win. Early Prediction: Mayweather. He’s still just too good for Pacquiao. Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, found out this week that he will once again receive the Eddie Futch Award as Trainer of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America for his work in 2014. Roach is the only seven-time winner of the award. “Words cannot express how much winning an award with Eddie Futch’s name on it means to me,” Roach said. “I’d like to thank the BWAA for this honor. My name may be on the plaque, but I am just a representative of the collective hard work and dedication from the most talented and hardest-working fighters and assistant trainers in the world.” Fighter of the Year is lightweight champion Terence Crawford of Omaha, Neb., and the 2014 Fight of the Year was the epic ring-war between John Molina of Covina and Lucas Matthysse of Argentina that ended with Matthysse knocking out Molina in the 11th round in April at StubHub Center.
Next Saturday - March 7 - is the NBC card that will feature Keith “One Time” Thurman (24-0, 21 KOs) defending his welterweight title against Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (32-2-1, 18 KOs) . Also on that card, the aforementioned Molina (27-5, 22 KOs) will take on Adrien Broner (29-1, 22 KOs) in a super lightweight fight and former three-division champion Abner Mares (28-1-1, 15 KOs) of Hawaiian Gardens will tangle with Arturo Santos Reyes (18-4, 5 KOs) of Mexico in a featherweight bout. ... Matthysse (36-3, 34 KOs) will take on former world champion Ruslan Provodnikov (24-3, 17 KOs) in the junior welterweight main event at Turning Stone Casino in Verona, N.Y. on April 18 (on HBO). ... Also March 7, Zou Shiming (6-1, 1 KO) of China will challenge Amnat Ruenroeng (14-0, 5 KOs) of Thailand for his flyweight title in Macau, China (on HBO2). ... Joseph Diaz Jr. (14-0, 9 KOs) of South El Monte on March 6 will take on Juan Luis Hernandez (17-4-1, 9 KOs) of Tijuana in the super bantamweight main event at Belasco Theater in Los Angeles
SOURCE:
http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20150227/floyd-mayweather-jr-will-be-too-good-for-manny-pacquiao-on-may-2