By Robert Brown: After the May 7th 2011 mega hyped bout against Sugar Shane Mosley, which fizzled out to an anti-climatic and unsatisfying result, it is clear to me, even though Manny Pacquiao coasted to an easy victory against an extremely defensive and often retreating Sugar Shane Mosley, that Pacquiao’s prime has officially passed him by.
For those of you who jump to question this statement all you have to do is look at the trend, and the trend is that Pacquiao has been getting hit more consistently in his most recent fights than he ever had been during his entire career with Freddie Roach, excluding the Hatton fight of course, which is nearly impossible to compare as it only lasted 1 ¾ rounds.
Pacquiao, more noticeably in his fight against Mosley, was unable to throw multiple combinations in consistent bursts like he had done in the past. Some people will say that this was due to the defensive mindset Mosley took into the fight, and I somewhat agree with this. Mosley’s attitude was in part a reason why Pacquiao was not able to dominate in the way he and his team would have liked, however I do believe there is more involved.
Mosley’s style was turning Pacquiao around, making him lunge and reach for his punches, more than any other time in the past five or six years. And an even more worrying factor for Pacquiao was that Mosley was able to easily slip and dodge so many of Pacquiao’s punches, even though Mosley is not considered a great defensive fighter, compared with Mayweather for example, who is a master of defense. I believe Mayweather will be able to turn Pacquiao around and pick him apart fairly easily.
Manny has also appeared to have lost his killer instinct since the De La Hoya fight. Granted his bout with Clottey was destined to go the distance, as Clottey is a resilient fighter who has never been stopped, but in the Margarito fight he could have finished Margarito off, but he quite clearly eased off on the gas when he knew he had the points, and saw Margarito was getting battered which lost him the hunger for the ko.
Again in the Mosley fight there were several opportunities for Pacquiao to step on the gas and go for the kill, but it appeared, at least through my eyes, that Manny had too much respect for Mosley, and therefore passed up many of those opportunities. It wasn’t until Mosley was incorrectly credited with a knock down that Manny fired up and began to land some combinations, but by then the fight was basically over.
Now I’m a huge admirer and a fan of Manny Pacquiao, and of what he has accomplished in the ring over the past 5 ½ years, but I feel that unless Pacquiao can get his killer instinct back, the killer instinct he possessed during the De La Hoya and previous fights, and unless he can stop himself from being turned around in the ring, I’m afraid that the biggest fight of this generation “Mayweather Vs Pacquiao” could be yet another anti-climatic result At the moment from what I saw Mayweather wins easy u.d because if Moseley can turn him and slip his punches Mayweather certainly will, and he will counter with speed and accuracy.
Manny must work on these flaws an rediscover his desire for the ko for this fight to deliver up to and beyond expectations.