Saturday, March 13, 2010

Pacquiao-Clottey

As always, styles make fights, and tonight's matchup would figure to favor Manny Pacquiao far more than Josh Clottey. (Of course, most style matchups tend to favor the Filipino these days.) Clottey's shell defense works pretty well against guys who don't throw a great deal, but it won't keep Pacquiao, whose punching arsenal the displays angular variety of Roy Jones and the volume of Meldrick Taylor, from touching him consistently. Clottey needs to avoid turning into a stationary target and throw a lot of punches to win; he's never done either of those things. Indeed, his lack of output handed the Cotto fight to the Puerto Rican, who isn't half as feverish a fighter as is Pacquiao. Unless he walks into something, Pacquiao's going to look sensational in winning by an easy decision or late knockout.

Let's hope the next one is Pacquiao-Mosley or Pacquiao-Mayweather.

6 comments:

don quixote said...

Pacquiao in eight, in a massacre.
The fight of the night might well be Humberto Soto vs David Diaz, both great battlers.

pc said...

Yeah that could be a good one, Soto makes good fights even if he's in against a runner, and Diaz figures to stay in front of him. But I think Soto will be too much.

Re Pac, I think it'll be somewhere between a massacre and totally uncompetitive. I definitely wouldn't be surprised by an eighth-round KO. I really think a fair amount of Clottey too, just a really bad style matchup for him. I don't see how he hits Pacquiao enough to stay with him.

don quixote said...

Manny looked real good tonight, over 1200 punches thrown, incredible.
Mayweather will now want Manny to take a prostrate exam and recite the Magna Carta before he agrees to fight Pacman.
I hope Shane Mosley kicks the ju ju bees out of him, Shane will put up a better fight against Manny than Mayweather anyway.

pc said...

Yeah he looked great. That was insane output from a welterweight. And there's no question he can take a punch at 147; the way he was standing in front of Clottey and basically begging for uppercuts, I'd not seen that before from him, but I guess he knew Clottey couldn't hurt him so it was worth it to get him to exchange. I just dont think Mayweather will be able to stay with that pace, and I dont think he moves so much faster than Pac to use a jab and move strategy. I think Pac's probably faster. If Mayweather were to beat Pacquiao, I think he'd have to punish him on his way in to range a lot early on, and make Pacquiao hesitant about moving into range. Or just hope to hit him with something he doesnt see and ko him. Otherwise, I just dont see the Mayweather of the last few years staying with a guy who throws 1200 punches and is just as fast as he. I'm hoping for Mosley to win regardless, and I think he's got a good shot.

The Diaz-Soto cards were a little wide, didnt you think?

don quixote said...

The judges cards were ridiculously wide for Soto, Soto is a great boxer but Diaz was pressing him nicely in the last few rounds and I always score for the fighter who is pressing and aggressive. And that last knockdown? Come on ref!

And I still don't think we will ever see a Mayweather/Pacquiao fight, regardless of the outcome of Mayweathers upcoming fight.
If one thinks about it much it's obvious that Mayweather is scared of PacMan, because he was willing to jeapordize millions of dollars that he could have made fighting PacMan by coming up with his own set of ridiculous rules about blood testing, even though the Nevada State Boxing commission had a blood test rule.
I think in the end Mayweather will be remembered as not only a sissy and a black eye for boxing, but also as a fool who blew an opportunity to make millions against Pacquiao.
I think we'll see Freddy Roach and PacMan make some outrageous demands on the Mayweather people for a fight, turnaround is fair play, and because it's now a proven fact that Pacquiao doesn't need Mayweather to make any money, and over 50,000 people at Cowboy Stadium last night was the exclamation point

pc said...

I thought 115-111 was ok, given the two knockdowns. But I dont see where you found eight rounds to give to Soto, even giving him every benefit of the doubt. Soto's problem was that he used very little jab, and he seemed unprepared for the relentlessness Diaz brought to the table. He came out one round after the trainers told him to fire the jab, and Diaz didnt get near him for the minute or two he used it. And then he forgot about it and started getting tagged. All in all, I wonder if Soto has the juice to be a big factor at 135. I mean if he had to dance to barely get by Diaz...unless this was just a really off night, I think there's a lot of guys at lightweight who could beat the Soto who showed up last night.