While rabid Pacfans flail in a dumbfounded state of denial regarding the outcome of Saturday’s Pacquiao vs. Marquez rubber match, Manny Pacquiao’s biggest fan has fallen silent on the issue of a showdown with welterweight and pound-for-pound rival Floyd Mayweather. Watching the fight from a bar in Mexico, I was struck by how subdued Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach was after the fight.
Roach’s answers to the press at the post-fight news conference made it plain he was not even remotely confident that his charge would emerge victorious in a clash with the Pretty Boy. Roach said they needed more work on dealing with counter-punchers, and even indicated he would rather fight Marquez for a fourth time over meeting Mayweather at the present time. Neither Roach or Pacquiao called out Mayweather. The bottom line is the Pacquiao camp gave every sign they knew they were lucky to escape with a win, and their confidence vis-a-vis Mayweather took a hard knock.
Triangulation
However, I think it too many people are reading too much into the results of Pacquiao vs. Marquez III by triangulating the players. Triangular logic dictates that if Mayweather whipped Marquez, and Marquez gives Pacquiao fits, then Mayweather should whip Pacquiao. That logic is damnably flawed.
While it is possible to glean quite a bit of information by comparing how two fighters perform against a given common opponent, triangular logic is almost always wrong, as it violates a key axiom of boxing: “styles make fights.”
Nothing illustrates this better than the famous 1974 Rumble in the Jungle. Virtually everyone outside of the Ali camp (and even some people inside Ali’s camp) ignored the “styles make fights” rule in favor of two common opponent triangles, Ali-Frazier-Foreman and Ali-Norton-Foreman. Those triangles dictated Foreman would annihilate Ali, ignoring how both Frazier and Norton were vulnerable to a fighter with Foreman’s particular attributes. Ali went on to shock the world and knock out Foreman.
The Real Facts
What Pacquiao showed us in his rubber match with Marquez is that his defense is still firmly rooted in his offense, and if you can weather or deflect that assault, Pacquiao is there to be hit. Pacquiao’s second line of defense, his concrete chin, takes over from there.
Mayweather is a masterful boxer with excellent counter-punching skills, and is bigger and faster than Marquez to boot, so he ought to clean Pacman’s clock, right? I don’t think that is necessarily the case, because Marquez and Mayweather are two very different counter-punchers. Dinamita combines a rugged Mexican style of boxing with a counter-puncher’s toolbox, and that is a big part of why he so obviously has Manny Pacquiao’s number.
Compared to Mayweather and most other counter-punchers, Marquez doesn’t play a defensive game that hinges off what the other guy does. He stays close in, sometimes choosing to force the action, and thereby creates his opportunities as much as he exploits them.
“Styles make fights” also reminds us that we should look at Mayweather’s own abilities. First, we know from the Mosley bout that if Pacquiao can reach Mayweather’s chin, he can dent it. Second, the classic way to defeat a guy like Mayweather is to overwhelm his defenses (such as Jose Luis Castillo did in their first bout). With his hand speed, southpaw stance, relentless assault and cracking, two-fisted power, Pacquiao remains the only fighter around who can plausibly pull off such a strategy.
Pacquiao vs. Mayweather Still Viable
The bottom line is that I don’t think the results of Pacquiao vs. Marquez III makes the outcome Pacquiao vs. Mayweather a foregone conclusion. Marquez and Mayweather are have excellent counter-punching skills, but any similarities between the two men end there, and a Pacquiao-Marquez-Mayweather comparative triangle simply is not that predictive.
However, the false logic of triangulation might just make Pacquiao vs. Mayweather finally happen. If Pretty Boy buys into that line of thinking, he might finally decide to make the Pacquiao fight happen, and therefore might be in for a very rude surprise.
