Manny Pacquiao: Follow This Blueprint and These Fighters Will Beat Him
I would like to start by saying that I realize it may sound audacious for a writer to claim to know the keys to beating the fighter who is widely regarded as the best boxer on the planet.
He’s defeated larger challengers than most people could've ever expected and he’s also dominated the living legends that he’s faced since beating Erik Morales in their rematch. Pacquiao has dominated all but one fighter since then: Juan Manuel Marquez.
Granted, Pacquiao has improved greatly since he and Marquez waged their second of two epic battles, but Pacquiao won by the smallest margin possible. While things have changed in Pacquiao’s game, the fight(s) with Marquez still hold the key for how Pacquiao can be beaten.
I will be detailing the areas of Pacquiao’s weaknesses and how they can be exploited and who might be best suited to accomplish this task.
As the great Mills Lane would say: “Let’s get it on!”
Attack the Body
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Pacquiao has blitzed through the boxing world in the last five years, but there was a time when he didn’t appear to be invincible. He has lost and he’s been knocked out, specifically, by a body punch.
Recently, we’ve also seen Pacquiao hurt, maybe as much as casual fans can even remember, in his last fight with Antonio Margarito by body shots while he was against the ropes.
He looked like he wanted to go down and even admitted after the fight that the body shots had him in trouble.
Work off of the Jab
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Any of the fighters that have a real chance at beating Pacquiao at this stage in his career need to work off the jab. Much like the feint, the jab has shown to totally disrupt Pacquiao’s movement, especially when he’s bouncing on his toes and moving in and out.
Morales did well to jab Pacquiao in the first fight but almost abandoned it in the second fight and tried to make the fight a war, which was obviously a bad idea.
Marquez, on the other hand, displayed the best use of a jab against Pacquiao that I can remember. Morales and Marquez both did a good job of jabbing to the face AND the body.
Marquez continually jabbed Pacquiao to the liver and all but stopped Pacquiao from coming forward in the middle rounds of the fight. Another thing that has always frustrated me is that fighters will keep trying to jab Pacquiao to the head when he’s moving his head; no one has ever just started jabbing him to the chest.
This is something taught from the amateur level into the pros, but it’s under utilized at the pro level.
Being jabbed to the chest almost never really hurts, but it’s bothersome and annoying. More importantly, it throws a fighter off of their game plan and gets them to stop moving their head as much.
Pacquiao can be hard to land a good punch against when he’s at his best. You need all the help you can get.
The Art of the Feint
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When I was growing up, my older brother used to act like he was going to hit me in the arm and if I flinched, he would hit me twice for flinching. If I didn’t flinch, he would just hit me anyways. More often than not though, I flinched, because he was a master of the feint. I was always certain that he was about to hit me.
Feinting really is an art.
You use this mock attack to disrupt someone else’s timing and to set up other punches, whether as a big brother bullying your younger, feeble brother or as a prize fighter.
Two fighters employed this method better than anyone else and also had the best results of anyone facing Pacquiao in the last five years: Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez.
Morales had one of the better feint sequences I can remember when he faced Pacquiao in their first fight together in 2005.
Morales was backing Pacquiao up towards the corner and threw a jab. Pacquiao raised both of his hands to guard his face as Morales feinted a looping overhand right. He stopped halfway through throwing the punch and landed a clean uppercut with his left hand.
Morales used the feint several times in this fight and by no coincidence, he won.
Marquez set up counterpunching opportunities by feinting, as well, in both of his fights with Pacquiao and had great success.
You’ll also hear some fighters grunt while they throw punches, like Glen Johnson for instance. While this helps you gain some added leverage by tightening your stomach while throwing a punch, it also helps you sell a feint. If you start throwing the punch and you grunt, an opposing fighter is pretty well fooled into thinking that you’re actually going to throw one and that’s the whole point.
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Ring Generalship/Control the Pace of the Fight/Footwork
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Of all the things said so far, this may be the most important. Granted, you can’t win a fight by not throwing a punch, but all the fighters at the elite level have punching power, speed or both. Plenty of fighters that fight at the championship level still have poor footwork.
Poor footwork was the nail in the coffin for De La Hoya. He was dragging his right foot every time he threw a punch with his right hand. He wasn’t on his toes or bouncing on his feet.
Margarito has terrible footwork and, coupled with his lack of speed, that made him a sitting duck unless he was able to pin Pacquiao on the ropes.
Ricky Hatton walks straight in most of the time and paid dearly for it.
The list goes on.
Going to the body, working off the jab and feinting all help slow Pacquiao down and make him change his game plan. Freddie Roach isn’t a trainer that offers great advice for any of his fighters if the fight isn’t going well.
If you can derail the game plan for Pacquiao, he fights on instinct and takes more chances. This works in a fighter's favor if they don’t get careless.
Throw Uppercuts/Punch Through His Guard
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Many fighters, like Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto for instance, hold their hands to the side of their head in a high guard defensive stance while blocking. Pacquiao has never been difficult to hit right down the middle when he’s facing a fighter that throws straight and accurate punches such as Morales, Marquez, Cotto and Clottey.
I picked De La Hoya to beat Pacquiao because I thought that Oscar intended to fight from distance and use his superior jab against Pacquiao.
I was totally wrong.
De La Hoya fought flat footed and kept trying to jab at Pacquiao’s head and never jabbed to the body or chest to stop Pacquiao’s head movement. Terrible game plan, terribly executed.
I thought Clottey had a real chance to beat Pacquiao because of his sharp and accurate punching, but I didn’t know he was only going to throw a handful of punches in each round.
Anyone that has seen Pacquiao fight knows that he’s prone to eating uppercuts over and over again. He has no defense against it if you’re close to him. His best shot to defend against it is if he happens to hit you harder at the same time you’re throwing a punch.
Morales, Marquez, Cotto, Clottey and Margarito all found a home for the uppercut and landed it often. Morales and Marquez used the uppercut as part of a combination, which worked beautifully to land other punches after the uppercut (which is how an uppercut should be used anyways).
Margarito is painfully slow but was still able to land the uppercut with some success. Regardless of how tough a fighter may be, no one wants to eat uppercuts.
If not the most, they’re one of the most damaging punches you can land. It wears down your chin and tires your neck and shoulders.
Defense/Counter Punching
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I think it goes without saying that you can’t beat Pacquiao without good defense, but working off of that defense and punching in return would be paramount in beating him.
It almost seems like so many fighters want to knock Pacquiao out that they are aimlessly aggressive. Most fighters he’s fought have fallen into this and, as Pacquiao has matured and improved as a fighter, he’s turned into a pretty good counter puncher himself.
Marquez used the jab to slow Pacquiao down and disrupt his timing, but he also made Pacquiao pay if he missed while throwing a punch. There’s only been two times where it looked like Manny might actually be hurt in the last few years, which is remarkable.
Like I mentioned earlier, Margarito got Pacquiao on the ropes and hurt him with body shots, but Marquez rocked Pacquiao with a counter left hook as Pacquiao was backing up and didn’t have his hands blocking his face. It totally caught him off guard and made him stumble for a second.
Counter punching also throws him off of his game plan and slows down his aggression and in and out movement.
Pacquiao has made bad habits of leaving his hands down while punching or after a punch. The old adage in boxing is “The worst punch is the one you don’t see coming” and counter punching offers you the best opportunity to land one of these punches.
Stamina
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Pacquiao is always in great shape, so you have to be able to match his stamina.
He doesn’t fade in fights, but he’s slowed down in the past. Going to the body will pay major dividends later in the fight, and he actually looked tired at times against Margarito.
Blame that on his lack of training or not having a good training camp, but he also took some serious body shots and he’s throwing more punches now at the higher weights as well.
He might be a little more prone to wearing down late in the fight.
Maintain Composure/Avoid a Firefight
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Morales and Marquez both did well against Pacquiao, but they got careless at times and were knocked down in doing so.
Morales switched to southpaw and went toe to toe with Pacquiao in the 12th round of their first fight. One of the most exciting moments I can remember in a fight in a long, long time. One of the problems going into the second fight for Morales, Pacquiao was wearing Reyes gloves instead of the Japanese brand Winning.
A lot of fighters use the Winning brand of gloves in training, including Pacquiao, because they offer better padding and protection over the knuckles, but most of the fighters switch to another brand in an actual fight because they don’t hurt the other fighter as much.
Pacquiao kept using them, so his punches had much more of an effect on Morales.
Morales admitted that he didn’t think Pacquiao was a strong puncher because he beat him so easily the first time, but he couldn’t handle his power in their second and third fights.
Marquez was fighting well and appeared to have Pacquiao on his heels when he was knocked down by a short left hand that he didn’t see coming. He wanted to hurt Pacquiao so badly that it cost him. They also exchanged many punches, and Pacquiao always got the better of Marquez when they did.
Cotto was also fighting well in the first four to five rounds, but he was also hurt and knocked down twice in that time. I think Cotto definitely isn’t the same fighter he used to be before the fight with Margarito and he doesn’t sit down on his punches anymore.
He wasn’t able to really hurt Pacquiao, but his jab and uppercut presented early problems for Pacquiao.
Don't Be Afraid to Make Adjustments
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Virtually every fighter Pacquiao has faced has fought him with one game plan.
The fighters had no plan B unless their name was Morales and Marquez. You could make the case that Morales and Marquez fought with a different game plan as the fight went on, but they have more tools than a lot of other fighters and can fight in a number of different ways. They did make some adjustments on the fly and they worked well for them
Marco Antonio Barrera was just outgunned both times he fought Pacquiao. Normally a versatile fighter, he was forced to fight Pacquiao’s fight.
Hatton had a game plan and after being knocked down twice in the first round he came out trying to make it a fire fight and paid dearly for it.
De La Hoya fought the same way all night, with the same feeble attempt to throw jabs or right hands. There was no backup plan.
Margarito went into his fight with Pacquiao with a plan. He attempted to jab Pacquiao from long range and actually stuck to that plan longer than most would’ve expected. His disparity in hand speed was quickly evident, and he started to fight the way he has for years. He tried to jab his way in and smother Pacquiao, and that’s when he had the most success and also the most trouble.
What Ever Happened to the Clinch?
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I fully understand that it may not be easy to clinch a guy that is throwing four, five and six-punch combinations at you, but it’s not impossible. No one really ever clinches Pacquiao.
If Bernard Hopkins were in his prime and fought at the same weight as Pacquiao, he would control the pace of the fight and fight at the distance that would be best for him.
He would also use his jab to disrupt Pacquiao’s timing, but he would also clinch. He would rough Pacquiao up on the inside and score points by fighting in the clinch.
With a fighter that relies on hand speed, combinations and punching power, why not smother him? Why not clinch? Why not fight while in the clinch? Something to consider.
Inactivity
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I don’t know why more wasn’t made out of this, but Pacquiao’s longest period of inactivity was between his fight with Clottey and Margarito.
I’ll say it again:
His longest period of inactivity since he’s been a professional fighter was between his last two fights.
I think everyone knows, at this point, that Pacquiao was elected as a congressman in his native Philippines. He’s the biggest celebrity in his country and a politician at the same time. He’s Obama, Elvis, The Beatles, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and their kids in his home country in terms of popularity.
He’s busy.
He came into his fight with Margarito in good shape but not Manny Pacquiao shape. He still had a body that most men would like to have but not in as good of shape as he had been in the past.
If you’re a fighter signing a contract to fight Pacquiao, try and make the fight as far away as possible. He’s going to be distracted; he’s going to be busy.
If he’s not in 100 percent shape like he used to be, body shots will do even more damage.
Don't Throw All of Your Eggs in One Basket
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Manny Pacquiao is a great fighter, no question. He’s obviously not easy to beat by any means.
That doesn’t mean that he can only be beaten one way.
Fighters tend to fight him like the only way he can be beaten is if you knock him out. That usually leaves guys with one option: get into a fire fight with Pacquiao.
Anyone who is going to beat Pacquiao has to be versatile and has to have good defense. They also have to be able to match Pacquiao in speed or be almost as fast. You also have to have enough power to keep Pacquiao honest.
Let’s take a look at who might embody all of these qualities and the probability that they might be able to beat Pacquiao.
Who Might Be Able to Beat Pacquiao?: Shane Mosley
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One of the greatest Lightweights of all time. He’s been in a number of big fights. He’s had great speed and power throughout his career, but his best days are behind him. He also fought like he was as bored as the people watching his fight with Mora and even though he was robbed of a decision, the fight stunk out loud.
It’s hard to believe that he’s only three fights removed from destroying Antonio Margarito when most people thought he would lose. Then, he looked like he might knock Floyd Mayweather Jr. out when he hurt him twice with two hard punches in the second round of their mega fight.
The current form of Mosley looks like the Mosley that fought the remaining ten rounds against Mayweather. He looks flat and his punching power seems like it’s all but gone.
He’s also struggled against every “boxer” he’s faced.
He shows visible frustration and he’s thrown off of his game plan once he starts eating punches, even if they’re jabs. He’s claimed of having a stiff or sore neck and asks for ice to be put on his neck in the corner at times, not something you see very often if ever.
Pacquiao’s hard and straight punches might be terrible for a guy with neck issues.
Mosley still has a puncher's chance but not much of one. I think he suffers the first knockout of his career if he faces Pacquiao.
Probability of beating Pacquiao: 25 percent
Who Might Be Able to Beat Pacquiao?: Andre Berto
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He’s young, strong, fast and untested. He had his toughest fight against Luis Collazo, a southpaw and somewhat crafty fighter. Berto came away with the disputed victory and rebounded with easy wins against Urango, Quintana and Hernandez.
Berto is one of the only fighters that can match Pacquiao with speed and power, and he may even have an edge in both of those categories,
His chin is suspect, though.
He also has poor defense. He could conceivably box Pacquiao but for how long? He also has a great uppercut and throws it with reckless abandon.
I could see him winning by knockout or on points, and I can definitely see him losing by knockout or on points. Pacquiao’s significant edge in experience may prove to be the difference, however.
Probability of beating Pacquiao: 40 percent
Who Might Be Able to Beat Pacquiao: Timothy Bradley
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Tim Bradley improves with every fight, it seems. He looks like he was chiseled out of stone but doesn’t have the punching power you might expect from a body like his. He has the drive and desire that few can match, and he seems like he’s still hungry.
He has really good speed, but he has holes in his defense. He hit the canvas twice against Kendall Holt, who really has unheralded power, but the knockdowns cannot be ignored.
He called out Pacquiao after his last win over Abregu and has a big fight lined up with Devon Alexander. A win over Alexander might make him a viable option for Pacquiao if he can also beat Khan or Maidana. He’d be the best fighter at 140lbs, no question.
That fight could be a year or more out, and he has a lot to take care of first. In his current form, he doesn’t quite have the tools to beat Pacquiao.
Probability of beating Pacquiao: 30 percent
Who Might Be Able to Beat Pacquiao? Devon Alexander
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Alexander has great footwork, excellent speed and has a high boxing IQ. People have compared him to a young Floyd Mayweather Jr. His ability to stay in the pocket and remain a sharp puncher is a tremendous asset and led to his knockout of Juan Urango.
His uppercut and footwork are excellent and he’s also a southpaw which helps. However, he did struggle against Andreas Kotelnik and barely won a decision.
There’s still a lot to be learned about Alexander, but he has all the tools and pedigree to be a fighter that might be able to step up and beat Pacquiao one day—just not today.
Probability of beating Pacquiao: 35 percent
Who Might Be Able to Beat Pacquiao?: Juan Manuel Marquez
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I’ve mentioned his name more than enough at this point for you to know the history between these two. Two total fights, two epic wars and they were decided by a total of one point.
To be fair, there was an error on one of the scorecards in the first fight that would’ve had Marquez losing a decision instead of a draw, but most people would agree that a win for Marquez in either fight would’ve been a fair decision as well.
However, Pacquiao has greatly improved, and it seems like he’s gone on to conquer the world of boxing and moved up four weight divisions since their last fight at 130lbs.
While Marquez has had an excellent career and had great wins at 135lbs, he was completely outclassed by Floyd Mayweather Jr. when fighting at Welterweight, which is where a fight with Pacquiao would likely take place. Even at 140lbs, it’s hard to imagine this fight resembling the first two.
Marquez is, however, crafty enough to exploit Pacquiao’s missteps, and if they fight at 140lbs, Marquez can’t be totally counted against, though definitely not favored.
Probability of beating Pacquiao: 35 percent
Who Might Be Able to Beat Pacquiao?: Sergio Martinez
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I seriously, seriously doubt this fight will ever happen, even at 154lbs for Sergio’s Middleweight titles as he suggested.
Even Martinez doesn’t think it’ll happen.
You can’t blame Pacquiao for not taking the fight. After all, Paul Williams was dislocated from consciousness by a looping left hand in his rematch with Martinez.
Martinez, a slick southpaw with deceptive punching power, would be a nightmare for Pacquiao. He’s also bigger, taller and he’s a southpaw. Top Rank won’t even consider negotiations for this fight, no matter what kind of history awaits Pacquiao if he were to win.
Probability of beating Pacquiao: 70 percent (if they ever fight, which I doubt they will)
Who Might Be Able to Beat Pacquiao?: Floyd Mayweather Jr.
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Mayweather has to beat the legal system before he fights anyone again. This might be the quickest deterioration of an athlete’s personal life since Mike Tyson.
It’s hard to imagine a fight with Pacquiao ever happening, especially when it could’ve happened twice already when he had no legal issues and didn’t take the fight for various reasons. The deck is really stacked against Mayweather now, which is a shame. It would be one of the most anticipated fights ever and probably the most watched fight ever.
A fight of this caliber on network television would be the talk of the sports world. You wouldn’t be able to escape hearing about it.
Mayweather has all the tools to beat Pacquiao. He does all of the things I mentioned as far as what would be needed to beat Pacquiao.
He’s just as fast, he’s a great counterpuncher, he has great footwork and defense, works off the jab and lead left hook, throws a great straight right hand which works wonders against southpaws, makes great in-fight adjustments, doesn’t like to get into fire fights, maintains composure, clinches when needed and never runs out of energy.
If there was a fighter created as a prototype to beat Pacquiao, it would be Mayweather.
Unfortunately, the fight may never happen.
Probability of the fight ever taking place: 20 percent
Probability of beating Pacquiao if it does: 85 percent
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