Early Analysis: Pacquiao Against Mayweather?

It was predictable. In the wake of the Pacquiao vs De La Hoya fight, and as Pacquiao has clearly knocked De la Hoya off his PPV visibility title with a conclusive victory, someone who supposedly had “nothing left to prove” now has. For the right price tag, of course.

Floyd Mayweather Junior, oh how we have missed you, so much that I have even forgotten your nickname. Oh. It just came back, it is “Money”. Doesn't that sound oh-so-pre-bubble and so out of touch with the new economic reality? But I am going on tangents.

The key question here is to provide some analysis on what might happen if Mayweather and Pacquiao (I arrange their names alphabetically, not by merit in the ring) meet. One safe prediction: promotional success.

Come on, this would be the first time in a while that the sports' superstars meet in their prime age at the cusp of their accomplishments and accompanying helpings of hype. Both wildly accomplished. Both with passionate fans behind them that will swear their idols are unbeatable and the greatest the sport has ever produced. Fight hype at its best.

Both fighters are stellar, but both also bring very contrasting styles to the ring.

Let us start with Floyd Mayweather Junior: a gifted stylist, but one that has proven that there is a lot of toughness behind the stylish boxing stanza. A lot of ink and commentary has been Mayweather's speed—I think the whole speed argument has become a lazy analysts' tool. Speed advantages are only visible against inferior athletes.

What fighters like Mayweather really have is excellent intuition to time their opponent—to figure out how they fight, how they set up punches, and how to take advantage of it. It is not a matter of a faster nerve connection or super-natural synapses between nerve cells, it is about having a fighter's eye and brain and figuring out what the opponent is doing, and having the athleticism to execute on it.

And Mayweather has excellent ring generalship. He masters the art of just outdoing his opponent, of figuring him out and exploiting his weaknesses. He is not that much faster, really—in fact, he got outlanded and countered by Judah early in their fight, but that fact is a blueprint in what Mayweather does at his best: study and learn his opponent, then time and gradually beat him to the punch, all the while protecting himself.

Mayweather is a very efficient fighter, kind of like Toney and Hopkins, but without ever having to disrupt opponents with tricks.

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