Why Pacquiao Can Beat Mayweather

Published

10 years ago

December 3, 2014

The speculation may not have quite reached fever-pitch yet, but here we fight fans are again dreaming of a match up betwixt Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. We’ve been teased so many times, it’s hard to invest too much on the recent swirl of rumors that suggest maybe, just maybe, 2015 will be the year.

Manny, the ever polite Filipino, seems to have found a way to get under Floyd’s skin without resorting to the sort of wild eye braggadocio that other fighters resort to. Manny has taken on the part of the happy warrior, cheerfully poking at Mayweather every chance he gets.

Foot Locker released the ad below of Manny mistakenly thinking an unnamed (har-har) fighter has finally agreed to meet him in the ring. The glee and excitement exhorted by Pacman is not only palpable, but pretty damn funny too.

Link for Foot Locker Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS8WJ6Lz1AU

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As well, after dominating Chris Algieri for 12 rounds on November 22nd, Manny reverted back to his Foot Locker character (“He’s going to fight me!”) when Floyd was mentioned in the post-fight interview. In politics, they say the best way to insult your opponent is to say awful things about them, but to do it with a smile. Of late, Manny seems to have taken that to heart like it’s his only job.

Manny isn’t doing it on his own either. Freddie Roach works the bad cop just as well as Manny works the good cop. Asked about A Manny/Floyd fight prior to the Algieri scrap, Freddie derisively said, “who the hell knows what’s going on with him.” In September, Freddie went even further, saying, “At this point, I think Mayweather’s legs aren’t there anymore. He’s not as sharp as Manny is, if you compare his last fight (against Marcos Maidana) with Manny’s last fight. Three years ago, I thought it was a dead-even fight and real tough fight to pick. Now, I don’t think that. I think we can knock Mayweather out at this point.”

The word is Freddie has been encouraging Manny to bring up the Foot Locker ad as often as possible. Roach and Pac seem to believe they have stumbled onto a formula. Manny grins and pokes fun, Freddie snarls and suggests Floyd’s not what he once was. Before, Floyd would be dismissive and find contractual impediments to avoid the fight (excessive blood testing, uneven financial splits, etc.), and when Manny agreed to nearly everything, Floyd would change the terms again.

Just last week, while watching a college basketball game on ESPN, I saw a crawl come across the ticker at the bottom of my screen. Floyd’s team had reached out to Roach demanding a rematch clause be placed into the contract should Mayweather lose. Apparently, Freddie said yes. Two thoughts entered my mind when I read this. One: This is starting to sound serious. Two: Wait…Floyd thinks he could lose?

The mind games appear to be working. Just this September, Floyd posted an image on Instagram he titled “3 ways to sleep. Back, face, and butt” showing Pacquiao on the canvas after his knock out loss to Marquez. The verbal battle has been joined, and the pressure is starting to mount.

While one could argue with ease that Floyd doesn’t need the money that would come with fighting Pac, he has to know the amount will be enormous. And if there’s one thing the “Money Man” likes, it’s more money. While I certainly think Floyd believes he would beat Manny, he must have questions. I’ve always felt if Floyd were to fight Manny, he would attempt to wait until Manny’s more risky, combative style would begin to atrophy his skill level while Floyd would continue to fight quality—if well matched—opponents that would largely leave himself undiminished. After the loss to Bradley (well, if you call that a loss), the KO against Marquez, and a seemingly safer approach in the ring by Manny that has led to questions about Manny’s desire and ability to score knock outs—it’s been five years since he TKO’d Cotto in the 12th– it would seem Floyd’s played this perfectly. So what’s holding Floyd up?

The only thing Floyd may cherish more than dead presidents is a living legacy. That legacy is highlighted by that career zero in the loss column. Floyd has often played it safe in his career. He’s an expert at fighting a guy when he’s either just a bit too green or a bit too rusty. For all Floyd’s innumerable skills, caution is the one he should be best known for. And let’s be clear, Floyd isn’t quite the same Floyd he used to be either. Both De La Hoya and Cotto marked him up. For one brief moment Mosley nearly had Floyd face first on the canvas had Mayweather not leaned in and held on to Shane’s frame to keep himself upright. In their first fight, Maidana put tremendous pressure on “Money” and Floyd needed to squeak out a majority decision. Does anyone not think Manny is better than all those guys?

Manny and Floyd have had a number of common opponents. The results, while not conclusive, are instructive.

• De La Hoya—Floyd earned a split decision (should have been a UD), against Manny, Oscar quit on his stool after the 8th.

• Ricky Hatton—Floyd defeated the Brit by 10th round TKO, Manny flattened Hatton in the 2nd with a wicked one punch KO.

• Shane Mosley—both fighters beat Sugar Shane easily, but Pac scored a knock down and Floyd was hurt early in his bout.

• Miguel Cotto—Floyd won a spirited unanimous decision that left his face swollen, Manny earned a 12th round TKO after battering the hell out of Cotto for the length of the fight.

• Juan Manuel Marquez—Floyd won a dominant unanimous decision, Manny went 2-1-1 against Marquez and suffered his most devastating loss.

Of their five common opponents, it’s hard to argue that Floyd outshined Manny against any of them with the notable exception of Marquez. Now to be fair, this is somewhat of a dangerous exercise and probably a poor predictor of what would happen if and when Manny and Floyd do get in the ring. Styles make fights, as they say. What it does illustrate though, is in the abstract, they are well matched.

While I do think it is not only fair to consider Floyd a favorite in a proposed fight, I suspect it is more than likely. What is also fair to say is Floyd has never faced anyone like Manny before and here is why Manny could win and why no one should be shocked if he did.

Both fighters have extremely fast hands. However, Manny is more likely to let his go, resulting in higher volume. While Floyd’s foot work and shoulder rolls are likely to result in many a glancing blow, most judges prefer activity to defense. Manny’s footwork and angles are not comparable to any other fighter in the game today. Manny’s quick feet allow him to be offensive and defensive at the same time. He can throw punches from almost any position and be difficult to hit due to that unpredictability. For a great offensive fighter, he’s seldom exactly where you expect him to be. Finally, power and accuracy. Manny probably hits harder than anyone Floyd has ever fought. He also lands an unusually high percentage of blows during any given fight.

In short, Floyd’s just never seen anything like Manny before. A quick drawing, powerful volume puncher, who is both highly skilled and highly unorthodox. He will be challenged.

Of course, Floyd is a magician in the ring. Few can figure out an opponent better than Floyd and then adjust his game plan. When Floyd lets his hands go, he can be dangerous as well. He also has quick hands, great footwork and may be the best defensive fighter of this or any other generation.

However, I believe Manny will test Floyd in ways that Money has never experienced. Manny won’t be afraid. He won’t be slower. He will be busier. He will hit harder. That’s a recipe for success. If Floyd wants to fight and beat Manny, he’ll need more than the sink, he’ll need the whole kitchen.

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David Phillips

TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

TSS-Salutes-Thomas-Hauser-and-his-Bernie-Award-Cohorts

The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Mekhrubon-Sanginov-whose-Heroism-Nearly-Proved-Fatal-Returns-on-Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

Published

5 days ago

April 12, 2025

David A. Avila

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In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.

No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.

“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.

Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.

Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.

In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.

That was a bad sign for Stanionis.

Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.

In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.

It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.

Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.

After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.

Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.

“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.

Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.

Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.

“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.

“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”

Other Bouts

Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.

The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.

“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.

Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.

Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.

Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.

In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.

“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”

In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.

“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”

After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.

Photo credit: Matchroom

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