Boston Herald: Hope Pacs a punch

But Marquez won’t bite

 By Ron Borges
Thursday, December 6, 2012

LAS VEGAS — Manny Pacquiao wants something he’s not going to get Saturday night. Even his Hall of Fame trainer, Freddie Roach, conceded that yesterday.

In preparing for his fourth and very likely final fight with his longtime nemesis, Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao said he intends to turn back the clock. He insists that despite turning 34 in a week he will fight likes he’s 24, returning to the hyper-aggressive style of his youth.

Perhaps he will, but after 60 prize fights and nobody knows how many thousands of rounds of sparring, few fighters reinvent themselves in that way. As unlikely as that seems however, Pacquiao is hoping for something even less likely.

“I want to fight him toe-to-toe,” Pacquiao said of the consummate counterpunching Marquez. “Either me or him. Both of us have two hands to use in the fight.

“He claims he won the (first three) fights, but he is always backing off, backing off. He claims he won, but he’s always waiting (for Pacquiao to throw and then counter him). You cannot say ‘I won’ but in the fight you are always backing off. It is contradictory. That’s his style, yes, but he needs to be aggressive and create the action.”

Fat chance.

Even Roach admits that if he were training Marquez he wouldn’t tell him to have an urge to merge. He would not advise him to attack, agreeing that at this stage of his career it is more than unlikely that the 39-year-old Marquez will abandon the style that has made him one of Mexico’s greatest fighters simply to please an annoyed Pacquiao.

“If we win another close decision it will be because we were the aggressor,” said Roach, who saw Pacquiao drop Marquez three times in the first round of their first fight and barely escape with a draw and then win a split-decision and a majority decision in fights many ringside observers and boxing lifers believe should have gone to Marquez.

“Defense doesn’t win fights,” Roach argued. “Offense wins fights. But I agree. People don’t change. That’s a very difficult thing to do. It’s (counterpunching) a smart way to fight Pacquiao, but you have to take the title. You can’t just have it given to you.

“In the second fight he had Manny cut and he had him on the ropes. Manny went there because he wanted to see if he had (guts) enough to finish him. He didn’t.

“If I was training him the one thing I’d say is if you hurt Manny you need to attack and finish him off, but he is what he is. If he wants to exchange more I think it’s in our favor.’’

That is why Marquez, for all his added muscle, will not satisfy Pacquiao’s fondest wish. He believes fervently he won the last two fights being who he is and many agree. The latest decision 13 months ago was boisterously booed by the crowd and it was difficult to find anyone outside of Manila who agreed with the decision going to a lackluster and often countered Pacquiao.

So why would Marquez change his style now? He has become one of the best fighters in the world as well as a man who will earn a minimum $6 million Saturday night because he is as adept a counterpuncher as there is in boxing.

That approach has baffled, boggled and beat upon Pacquiao for 34 of the 36 rounds they’ve fought (in the other two Marquez was knocked down a total of four times). By waiting for Pacquiao to throw and then countering him before he can escape, Marquez has controlled the tempo and angles of their fights most of the time, at times forcing Pacquaio to grow hesitant himself.

He will often lead with a sneaky right hand that is the bane of a southpaw like Pacquiao and has caught him with it repeatedly over those 36 rounds, driving him back time and again with counter shots and perfectly placed lead rights for which Pacquiao has had no answer.

Knowing that, the No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter in the world (behind Floyd Mayweather Jr.) has begun a final week of psychological warfare. Pacquiao’s hope is that somehow he can convince the consummate professional to act unprofessionally.