When you are 47-0 you don’t have a lot of weaknesses, but since there is no such thing as a perfect fighter there are some things you can take advantage of.
Most of Mayweather’s weaknesses are easily identified, but just because you know what they are, doesn’t make them easy to exploit and that is why he is the current pound for pound king.
1- Lack of activity
People have said this for years that the best way to attempt to beat Mayweather is to just throw a lot of punches, but it isn’t as simple as that. Throwing punches leaves you open for counters and Mayweather is the best counter-puncher in the game. What you have to do is at times be willing to walk through the counters to throw your punches. They don’t have to connect cleanly, just somewhere on Mayweather’s body. Maidana had the right idea, but was just too wild and inaccurate. As we know often times judges will value activity and the aggressor more than the accurate puncher (we just saw this with the Garcia-Peterson fight). Mayweather unlike Peterson has a sense of how many punches he needs to throw to win rounds, so you have to double and triple that output to at least give the judges something to think about and take advantage of Mayweather’s lack of activity.
Check out some of the early success Oscar De La Hoya had against Mayweather, he isn’t connecting cleanly, but he is throwing 4,5,6 punches at a time (goes to the body a lot). Pacquiao will have to keep up that type of activity for every minute of all 12 rounds.
2- Mayweather has a tendency to take breaks on the ropes.
This is something Freddie Roach has been talking about for years, he thinks Mayweather’s legs are shot and that is why he hangs out on ropes. I don’t think it has as much to do with that as it does Mayweather knowing he is getting older and he’s a great fighter off the ropes, so he takes his mini breaks there.
With that being said your chances of hitting Mayweather increase dramatically if you can pin him on the ropes, you don’t have to hit him cleanly, but it is about activity, stealing rounds and making the appearance that you are outworking him.
Watch a few clips from the Miguel Cotto fight. Cotto who is a better pure boxer than Maidana had more success when he gets Mayweather in the corner and on the ropes.
Pacquiao even though he is the smaller man has to take advantage of these situations if Mayweather decides to take these breaks on the ropes or in the corner.
3- Mayweather can be a slow starter.
Once Mayweather figures you out the fight is essentially over. So you have a brief period of time where you can take advantage of him while he works on getting your timing down. Mayweather has a very good chin, sometimes the reason defensive boxers are defensive is because their chins are made of glass. Mayweather takes a very good punch and similar to Bernard Hopkins even if he is hurt, it is hard to tell. He also knows when to hold and what to do when he is in trouble. Pacquiao has to take a page from Shane Mosley and Zab Judah, go YOLO early because if it gets to later rounds it might be too late.
4- Very rarely, you can counter Mayweather’s counter.
Mayweather has a set of moves that are like Tim Duncan in the post, you know they are coming, you have seen them for almost 20 years, but you still can’t stop them.
But, very rarely a boxer will time one of Mayweather’s signature counters with a counter of his own. I believe this is what Pacquiao and Freddie Roach hope to achieve. They believe they can out-Mayweather, Mayweather. I don’t know if that is a good strategy, but this is what they are hoping to do.
https://youtu.be/V8dJi6rtSCU
Watch closely to see what is happening there. One of Mayweather signature counters is pulling back from his opponent’s jab attempt and shooting a straight right hand, but Maidana either by luck or anticipation realizes this, cuts his jab short and immediately throws a strong right hand himself beating Mayweather to the punch. It took Mayweather a full round to recover. Once again this happened early in the fight, which seems to be the only times Mayweather gets hit cleanly.
Freddie Roach keeps saying that he is aware of Mayweather’s traps and has a masterplan for them, we will see on May 2nd.