Oscar 'Golden Boy' De La Hoya and Manny 'Pacman' Pacquiao are popular and accomplished enough that even general sports fans are familiar with their styles and track records. Any self-defined fight fan has an opinion on who will win Saturday’s showdown and why.
While fans and members of the media disagree on whether Pacquiao, who is making the leap from lightweight (135 pounds) to the uncharted territory of welterweight (147) to challenge De La Hoya, can even be competitive with the taller, naturally bigger man, most observers agree on the keys to victory for each fighter.
FOR DE LA HOYA:1. Establish distance/jabRegardless of the size of his opponent, De La Hoya is at his best when he’s on his toes and working his hard jab from the outside, where he gets the most leverage on his left hook and right hand.
He’s never been terribly effective when fighting on the inside. If De La Hoya, who stands half a head taller than Pacquiao, elects to swap punches in close, he will give the frenetic speedster his best opportunity to compete.
Common sense dictates that the more room De La Hoya has to operate the more effective he’ll be against an opponent who tends to lunge in when he attacks.
“Oscar’s fought aggressive fighters his whole life,” said Dundee, who was brought into De La Hoya’s camp as a “second set of eyes” three and half weeks ago. “He knows how to handle them. You let an aggressive fighter move you or back you up, you got trouble, but Oscar knows how to ‘surround’ aggression – just like Ray Leonard did with (Marvin) Hagler – by stickin’ ‘em with the jab and sliding to the right or left.”
2. Control Pacquiao on the insideBut what if Pacquiao manages to get past De La Hoya’s jab? The six-division titlist’s conditioning coach Rob Garcia says De La Hoya will shut Pacquiao down inside by borrowing grappling tactics from two all-time-great former heavyweight champs
De La Hoya usually doesn’t initiate clinches, but Garcia says Beristain had him practice locking the arms of his sparring partners whenever they got too close for comfort.
“Any time Pacquiao gets inside Oscar has to be able to tie him up so he can’t get off,” said Garcia, who been an integral part of De La Hoya’s training team since 2001. “He has to shut down and control Pacquiao by pulling him in and weighing down on him the way (Muhammad) Ali did to his shorter opponents like (Joe) Frazier, or by grabbing him behind his shoulders or elbows and muscling him back on his heels the way (Evander) Holyfield did to (Mike) Tyson in their first fight. Holyfield never allowed the explosive puncher to get going inside and that’s what Oscar has to do with Pacquiao.”
3. Dictate the paceApart from his blinding speed, the biggest threat Pacquiao brings to Saturday’s fight is a featherweight’s workrate in a welterweight’s body.
It would be a cardinal mistake for De La Hoya, a boxer who faded in the late rounds even when he was in his prime, to fight fire with fire against Pacquiao, but one of Beristain’s prize pupils, Juan Manuel Marquez, doesn’t think there’s a much of a chance of this happening.
“Pacquiao’s youth, speed and activity could be too much for De La Hoya if he tried to fight Pacquiao’s fight, but I think Oscar’s too smart to do that,” said Marquez, who knows a thing or two about ‘the Pac-Man’ having fought 24 competitive rounds with the Filipino icon. “Oscar has to use his footwork to keep Pacquiao turning and slow him down. His punches have to be about timing, not volume.”
Garcia confirmed Marquez’s hunch.
“There’s no way Oscar’s going to oblige Manny by trying to match his punch output,” he said. “That’s OK when it’s too young guys, but this isn’t like that. This is a veteran vs. a young tiger.”
FOR PACQUIAO:1. Get in close/slip the jabRoach has made no secret of the fact that most of his strategies to break down De La Hoya begin with his fighter neutralizing the bigger man’s jab.
Many fans and boxing writers expect Pacquiao to take the fight right to De La Hoya from the opening bell Saturday night, but Roach doesn’t want his fighter to make a forward move until he’s either feinted the bigger man out of position or slipped past the jab.
For the past eight weeks Roach has drilled a dozen counter-punch moves targeting the body and head, and they all begin with Pacquiao blocking, side-stepping or rolling under De La Hoya’s long left jab. During intense mitt work and sparring sessions, Pacquiao was instructed not to advance forward during the early rounds. He could be first with the jab (shooting his straight right to the chest in order not to over extend himself), he could catch and counter with his right hook or he could duck under De La Hoya’s left stick before pounding the body, but he wasn’t allowed to jump in without dealing with the jab.
2. Work the body“Everybody knows Oscar’s got a pretty good chin,” Roach said. “We’re not going to try to hurt him to the head; we’re going to concentrate on the body because that’s where we think we can really hurt him. He leaves his body open when he punches and the one time he was stopped [against Bernard Hopkins] it was from a body shot, so Manny’s going to attack the body every time he can.”
3. Set the paceDe La Hoya has faded down the stretch of most of his close fights and losses. In high-profile showdowns with Pernell Whitaker, Ike Quartey, Felix Trinidad, Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather Jr., De La Hoya’s punch output dropped dramatically between the eighth and 12th rounds.
Roach is confident that it will happen again Saturday night.
“Manny’s going to make Oscar work harder than he’s used to from the first round on,” Roach said. “We’re not going to do anything stupid in the early rounds, but we’re going to make lead, make him move around the ring more than he likes. As soon as we see him slow down I’m going to have Manny step on the gas. I’ll take a win any way we can get it, but I think there’s a good chance that Manny stops him late.”
The X-FactorsDe La Hoya-Pacquiao is a 147-pound catch-weight bout between a 35-year-old veteran who has campaigned at junior middleweight (or higher) since 2001 and a 29-year-old southpaw who only recently moved to the lightweight division, so there are more than a few wild cards to Saturday’s showdown.
Pacquiao’s chin Two of Pacquiao’s three losses were third-round knockouts that occurred in the flyweight division. Some fans ask how a chin that’s been dented by 112 pounders can hold up under De La Hoya’s left hook, which left durable Ricardo Mayorga in a heap?
It’s a fair question, but to be fair to Pacquiao, it has to be noted that his first KO loss occurred 12½ years ago in his 12th pro fight when he was two months removed from his 18th birthday. Pacquiao’s second KO loss took place in 1999 after he completely drained his growing body in a failed attempt to make the 112-pound limit for a defense of the WBC flyweight title he held.
Since that body shot stoppage, Pacquiao’s chin has held up in title runs through four weight classes.
The weightMore than a few boxing writers consider this fight to be more of a side show than a legitimate contest because of the weight difference between the combatants. However, Pacquiao’s average weight during training camp was around 152 pounds, while De La Hoya claims to have maintained the welterweight limit of 147 pounds for the last month.
De La Hoya was under 147 pounds two weeks ago and says that he even dipped as low as 143 pounds at one point.
Garcia believes that welterweight is De La Hoya’s natural weight.
“Oscar was taxing his body by fighting at 154 pounds and middleweight,” he said. “I know 147 is right for him because we haven’t limited his food or liquid intake during this whole camp. The amount of energy he’s expended in training is what has dictated his weight, and I can tell you that he has more energy at welterweight than at the higher weights.”
Roach reports that Pacquiao, who currently weighs around 144 pounds, did not lose much speed in gaining the added weight during his camp.
“He ate more protein and he gained more power,” Roach said.
Pacquiao’s left-handed stance.Based on De La Hoya’s less-than-stellar performance against Whitaker and a sparring session he observed between The Golden Boy and left-handed 108-pound champ Ivan Calderon, Roach believes De La Hoya has problems with southpaws.
That could be true, but it should be noted that Pacquiao is a very different type of southpaw from Whitaker and Calderon, both of whom are slick defensive specialists.
Dundee believes that De La Hoya, a converted southpaw with an extra heavy left hand, should pose more problems for a smaller left hander because his left hook will land on Pacquiao’s blind side.
But Dundee is also quick to point out that observers can only guess what will happen until the opening bell.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Dundee told an anecdote about working a fighter’s corner along with Roach and the late, great Eddie Futch.
“Our fighter got licked,” Dundee said, “(The corner) don’t mean a damn thing. These great trainers worked with him and he still lost.”
source: www.thering-online.comRelated Post:
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