Trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr still thinks 35-year-old WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao would be a really easy fight for his son WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr if the two of them meet up down the road in 2015 or perhaps 2016.
Floyd Sr believes that Pacquiao would lose to the big guys that Mayweather has been fighting.
Floyd Sr doesn’t mention the names of the bigger guys that he thinks would beat Pacquiao, but obviously he’s talking about Marcos Maidana, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto.
Pacquiao beat Cotto 5 years ago by a 12th round knockout, but that was in a catch-weight at welterweight in 2009. Cotto has become a much stronger puncher, and an arguably smarter fighter since he moved up to middleweight and teamed up with Freddie Roach, the same trainer as Pacquiao.
“If he [Mayweather] takes Pacquiao, that’ll be an easy fight for him. Pacquiao can’t whoop no damn Alvarez,” Floyd Sr said to Fighthype.com. “Pacquiao can’t whoop them big fighters Floyd’s fighting; he can’t whoop them guys, man. Them guys would beat the [expletive] out of Pacquiao.”
Canelo and Cotto would definitely give Pacquiao major problems at this point in his career. Even with Pacquiao fighting with his in and out style, he would have serious problems against both of them. Pacquiao doesn’t seem to be the same puncher he was back in 2009 now that he no longer has strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza on his team, and without his power, he’ll be force to eat a lot of heavy shots against Cotto and Canelo.
As far as Pacquiao getting another catch-weight handicap, he won’t be getting against either of them. They’ve both said no to the idea of fighting Pacquiao at a catch-weight. So in other words, if Pacquiao wants to fight Cotto or Canelo then the best he could hope for is to meet them at 154. With Cotto, he might even say 160.
If that’s the case, Pacquiao will be giving away a lot of weight, and I’m not sure that he could hang with Cotto with the way he’s punching now that he moved up to middleweight. This move by Cotto was long overdue, because he clearly belongs at middleweight. His power is much better in this weight class than it was at 154 and 147.