Mayweather, Sr. is Mayweather’s trainer and coach. He’s been attacking Pacquiao since his fighter, Ricky Hatton of England, lost to Pacquiao via TKO in 2009.
Mayweather, Sr. has resumed his verbal attacks against Pacquiao, saying his son will have no problem beating the Filipino boxer when they finally face each other in the ring on May 2.
One of his fight plans for his son is to target Pacquiao’s body, as he believes it is Pacquiao’s weak and vulnerable area.
A veteran professional boxer and trainer, Mayweather Sr. must have viewed the You Tube video of Pacquiao’s loss to Thai fighter Medgoen in 1999:
In the video, Pacquiao suffered a third-round KO from Singsurat’s power shot that landed on Pacquiao’s body sending the aspiring Filipino fighter to the canvas and counted out.
It was Pacquiao’s second career loss. A year after his career debut, Pacquiao suffered his first loss against fellow Filipino Rustico Torrecampo, also via KO in the third round.
It would be presumptuous for Mayweather, Sr. to say that Pacquiao’s body is his weakest link because it happened only once in his career. After losing to Sinsurat, Pacquiao’s three other losses in a span of 15 years were not caused by fatal body shots.
Pacquiao’s loss to Erik Morales in 2005 wasn’t caused by a body shot as shown in this video. It was a fight that went the distance and was won on points by Morales via a unanimous decision.
In 2012, Pacquiao fought Timothy Bradley and it wasn’t body shots that caused his loss. It appears like a won fight for Pacquiao as seen by all the five boxing judges who reviewed the video of the fight a few days after the controversial split decision was handed by the three original judges.
Likewise, Pacquiao’s loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in December 2012 was not caused by body shots as shown here.
Pacquiao’s ability to withstand power shots on his body after the Sinsurat fight was tested when he fought Antonio Margarito in 2010.
The fight was clearly a mismatch owing to Margarito’s superior height, reach and build. As shown in this video, Margarito targeted Pacquiao’s body with a series of power punches in the middle rounds but Pacquiao held on by maintaining a safe distance to avoid Margarito’s body attack.
Despite Pacquiao’s ability to withstand body shots from superior opponents, Mayweather, Sr. still believes that it will be Pacquiao’s body that will give way.
“If you’ve ever seen Pacquiao fight, against everybody, you never see nobody going to his body — you never see nobody going to his body,” he said. “So my thing would be is to tell Floyd, hit him with the straight right hand and left hook, and then go back to the body.
“A southpaw is definitely geared to be hit with right hands. I’m going to say that, along with the body work, it’s going to be a good right hand and a left hook that’s going to put him down,” he added.
No one knows for sure if Mayweather, Sr. will ask his son to launch a body attack as it may not work on Pacquiao — in doing so, Mayweather will have to open his defense to execute a body shot and if he does, Pacquiao will surely find his target.
It is definitely worth trying but with Pacquiao’s speed and power, going down to the body would be very risky for Mayweather to even try.
It is possible though that the elder Mayweather is just trying to get into Freddie Roach’s nerves for psychological advantage but the longtime Pacquiao’s trainer is always ready with his own mind games as part of his own fight plan.
