The Filipino faces a tactical battle
Thursday 30 April 2015 11:23, UK
Manny Pacquiao must have more than one game-plan if he wants to inflict a first defeat on Floyd Mayweather, says Paulie Malignaggi.
If you're Manny, you have to be aggressive, combined with speed, and really get Floyd's attention early on.
He needs to get in his head or Floyd will start to dictate the pace and then the fight will start running away from Manny.
He has to do something inside those opening rounds. If he can't land a big punch, he has to start coming up with strange angles, create a weird sort of pace, that makes Floyd uncomfortable.
Something has to keep Mayweather on edge or within two, certainly three rounds, he will get in the zone and those last eight or nine rounds will be very, very difficult for Manny to do anything.
It will get worse and worse for him. It is up to Manny to... be Manny, but is he going to be able to do that against a genius like Floyd Mayweather?
But there is always a twist or something we're not expecting that makes a great fight. Sugar Ray Leonard against Thomas Hearns will always be remembered as a great fight for that and great fighters are the ones who can adapt and make adjustments throughout the fight.
For me, that is what made Leonard-Hearns stand out, because they made adjustments on each other and it went back and forth continually. One had the advantage, then the other, then back to the first one and so on.
It was crazy momentum, shifting and swinging to each fighter, who were both able to change things on the fly in a pressure situation.
We will see if this happens on Saturday night, especially if Manny can. If he can't, then he will be shown up as the one-dimensional fighter that a lot of people say he is. If he is able to make adjustments early on, get Floyd doing the same, then the greatness of them both will be there for all to see.
I know Floyd has made levels of adjustment, but Manny hasn't really shown that and needs to adjust if he's going to have success in this one. If he ends up getting whitewashed and this fight goes theoretically as a Floyd Mayweather fight does, he will start shutting Manny down and then Pacquiao is not as multi-tasked as many people think.
Many people think he is one-dimensional and that is one of the big questions we will get the answer to come Saturday night.
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