On Saturday May 2nd, the most eagerly awaiting fight of the 21st century took place. Floyd Mayweather Jr took on Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas in a career-defining encounter that has been a long, long time coming.
To celebrate this pugilistic milestone and following a number of requests I put together a video as a preview to the fight and a video as a post-fight analysis. In this article you will find both videos.
Prediction videos in this format are not something I have ever done, but there’s a first time for everything I suppose.
In keeping with all MyBoxingCoach videos, I have tried to capture some detail and go through the technical and tactical capabilities of each boxer.
The first video will cover the following areas:
- The physical capabilities of each boxer
- The technical capabilities of each boxer
- The prediction including the likely tactical approaches.
I don’t cover the politics, history or other generic stuff often covered in the build-up to a big fight – there are a plethora of more qualified people than I who can do that. I want to stick to the technical and the tactical…it’s much more interesting to me 🙂
Here is the preview video:
Having digested that, here is the review/post-fight analysis article:
I’m really interested to hear comments on the fight. I know how many smart people (casual fight fans and ‘the others’) frequent the site so I’m sure you saw stuff that I missed. Let me know below.
Cheers
Fran
by 
Thanks for the videos fran – enjoyed ur breakdown as usual.
I am not a fan of Mayweather the person, but he proved again he is the greatest technical defensive fighter around. He gets hit only 19-20 % of the time throughout his career and continued that in this fight. He does enough offensively to win and thats his style like it or not. He doesnt care about “entertaining” the crowd, standing toe to toe, or taking shots just to prove he can. As you said, he came out more aggresively than i thought he would and set the tone. His command of range was so good it seemed to me that he didnt even have to use as many lay backs as he usually does, which is one of his favorite moves to counter off of.
Not sure about Pac’s injury. He just didnt seem right to me, but that could have just been Mayweathers style. Even when he had Mayweather on the ropes several times, he seemed to hesitate for a second or two before attacking. Was it his shoulder, or was he wary of getting countered? When he threw some flurries inside his punches seemed to lack the usual power and have little effect other than a fast shoeshine.
Anyway, sorry to go on, but it was an interesting event to me.
Will be interesting to see who Mayweather comes “out of retirement” to fight next.
Mickey
Hey Mickey
Hope you are well.
Great comment, can’t find much to argue with there. The injury (no reason to doubt that he had an injury) may have affected Pac’s training…just don’t know nor I guess will we ever truly find out. Not sure how relevant though because for me Mayweather just has the style to deal with pac.
Hope all is well with you and the gym mate.
Take care
Hi Fran,
The preview I can live with but your post fight take surprised me a little. I beg to differ and it’s not just a point or a claim I would challenge. I disagree fundamentally with the evaluation of Mayweather’s performance. Here is my view on subject:
http://www.boxing247.com/boxing-news/the-farce-of-the-century-mayweather-ud-12-pacquiao/41030
I do not like Pacman one bit but he deserves to be measured with the same stick. Propaganda and hype went too far this time. You quote the official punch stats and that’s one of the main give aways. Official punch numbers, especially “total punches landed”, were the biggest joke after the official scoring.
I don’t know if you recorded this before Knan/Algieri, after this performance Khan’s chances of fighting Floyd probably got better. Khan won beyond doubt but did a mediocre job against a non-boxer and took lead right hands that were more insulting than hurtful. Floyd’s lead right hands would hurt and it won’t be just that.
Cheers,
Ivan Ivanov
Hello Ivan
Nice to hear from you and I hope that you are well.
Read you article. We have seen things from a very different viewpoint and to be honest you are the first ‘boxing person’ I’ve engaged with who saw it for Pacquiao. I have always viewed punchstats with great suspicion. I looked at them on this occasion purely because it felt that Pacquiao had just done nothing with his jab for the whole fight and I wondered what the stats might be – he just took jab after jab. Pac was, for me, beat to the punch over and over.
To be honest mate this has been my one sojourn into fight previews and reviews – I’ll be doing no more. I have not particularly enjoyed the process, especially the subjective ranting comment process on YT. I will be back in the gym next week to get some proper coaching vids done!
Thanks Ivan
Hey Fran,
I respect your opinion and expertise and regard you as a true expert in the sea of pretenders, a boxing guru of sorts if you will.
Judging is subjective by definition and the least reliable judges are the official judges. Roach and Arum initially kept their cool but now they rant about how 90% of the people tell them Pacman got robbed. Holyfield among others saw the fight 116:112 for Pacquiao, he should know. The audience at a basketball game at home booed Mayweather after the fight. Only the mainstream continues to tiptoe around him.
I understand your Khan/May article got you some mixed feedback and I see your video as an apology of sorts. Mayweather does not need our approval and you do not have to please every reader/viewer, teach them, don’t please them if you ask me.
Take care.
Fran, excellent video as always. I want to just pick a hole in Mayweather if I can. I know you’re a huge fan and totally agree that he is a fantastic boxer. But is it fair to say he lacks one thing – a big punch? When I look back on the all time greats particularly the likes of Hearns , Duran and Leonard etc they all could finish it with one punch. Floyd seems to lack that ability, it’s more a case of great defence, wear the opponent down and then finish him in the later rounds. Fair comment or not?
Fair comment Chris and thanks for the comment. He hits hard but not in the league of the guys you mention. Ultra cautious and to be honest there’s only the odd Mayweather fight that I’d watch more once. Give my the 4 Kings any day!
Hi Fran,
Thankyou Mate for your pre and post fight tutorial, absolutely outstanding.
Cheers
Peter
Cheers Pete. Going to stick with coaching vids from now on (going in gym to film next week). Not liking the weird-type comments on YT, go back to what I originally set the site up to do!