Why Floyd Mayweather Will Crush Manny Pacquiao
LAS VEGAS, NV (CBS) — Floyd Mayweather was being a pest. He nervously paced the suburban Detroit hotel lobby that bright October morning, a rising star at the time, looking for a gym—needing it more than food.
"I have to get one more in, one more, call around, find someplace where we can go," Mayweather told one of his underlings. "There has to be one gym around this freakin' place!"
This was Mike Tyson-Andrew Golota weekend, two days before Mayweather was going to fight Emanuel Burton (now Emanuel Augustus) on HBO's short-lived "KO Nation" series.
And Mayweather still felt he needed to get in more work.
Floyd Mayweather is a prodigy, raised around boxing. It's all that he has known. His father, Floyd Sr., fought. His uncles, Roger and Jeff, fought. Boxing courses through Mayweather like blood. So does winning on the biggest stage of the sport.
May 2 won't be any different, when Mayweather steps in against Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, in a fight most boxing observers know should have taken place five years ago, but a fight most general sports fans want to see.
There is a reason why Mayweather is the best fighter in the world. Why he's 47-0, with 26 KOs, and hasn't lost a fight since August 2, 1996 (to Bulgaria's Serafim Todorov in the 1996 Olympic featherweight semifinals) or in 6,846 days (which translates into 18 years, 8 months, and 29 days).
Mayweather suffers from a serious addiction: working out. That's part vanity, part insecurity. He loves training and can't help but look at himself in a mirror every chance he gets, whether it's when he is hitting a speedbag or passing between parked cars to check out his reflection in the windows.
He has to look good.
Underneath the public persona of arrogance and swagger lies a diffident athlete who constantly questions himself. It's why he'll gather up his crew and work out at 2 a.m. He fears that if he is not close to perfect, he won't be able to perform.
And it's the primary reason why Mayweather will chew up the smaller, shopworn Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) in their welterweight showdown expected to be most financially lucrative fight in boxing history. An estimated three million are expected to purchase the record-priced $99-pay-pay-view telecast and the crossover appeal and media credential demand have reached all-time highs.
But peeling through all of the shtick and trappings surrounding this fight is the stark reality that Mayweather is simply a better, more-conditioned, more-skilled fighter than Pacquiao.
If the fight did take place in 2010, as many in the boxing world had hoped, it would have had the same outcome, though a much closer fight. Pacquiao wouldn't have 78 rounds of wear on his body, including the devastating sixth-round knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in December 2012.
In comparison, Mayweather, 38, has only fought 64 rounds since 2010. His defensive-oriented style has prevented the kind of abuse Pacquiao has endured.
"I hope that it lives up to the event, to the expectations, to the hype. Unfortunately, too many of Mayweather's fights don't live up to the hype," Hall of Fame broadcaster Larry Merchant said. "The excitement ends when the first bell rings. That said, Mayweather's type of fighter has a longer shelf life than Pacquiao's style of a fighter. So Mayweather will be the favorite — a strong favorite – to win.
"Five or six years ago, if this fight would have taken place then, Mayweather would have been the favorite, too, but not as sure of a favorite. That's been the difference in the two fighters since then. If you put a gun to my head, there is a reason why the favorite is favored. What I would like to see is Pacquiao be the old Pacquiao. And if he can be that for one night, then he has a shot."
Pacquiao is training more diligently than for any fight he has ever had. But his body is beginning to betray him. He's suffered cramps in his calves, which are cut like bulging diamonds and belong on a much larger man.
Consequently, the "old" Pacquiao, though 36 and a year younger (Pacquiao will turn 37 in December) than Mayweather, may finally be too old.
Joseph Santoliquito is the President of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
