Robert Garcia Says Mayweather “Very Basic”, Pacquiao Is Harder To Prepare For

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robert garciaEsNews spoke with trainer Robert Garcia about his thoughts on Mayweather-Pacquiao and he clearly feels that Pacquiao is the scarier of the two fighters. As a trainer that has trained fighters against both Mayweather and Pacquiao, Garcia considers Pacquiao a much harder fighter to prepare for. It doesn’t necessarily mean he is picking Pacquiao (he didn’t make a pick in the interview) but he definitely holds Pacquiao in high regard.

Garcia was asked about what each fighter does best, and he pointed at Mayweather’s fight with Maidana as evidence that Mayweather isn’t really that difficult to prepare for. He went so far as to call his own fighter “one dimensional” when making his point.

“Inside the ring, Mayweather has been very difficult, the way he fights, very defensive but Maidana being a one-dimensional fighter… gave Mayweather a really good fight.”

Maybe it is an overstatement to claim Maidana gave Mayweather a “difficult” fight but relative to most of Mayweather’s other fights, he’s right. It was more difficult than many of his blowouts. He then went on to talk about how difficult Manny is to prepare for because of his movement and activity in the ring.

“It’s his style, the way he fights, he throws a lot of punches, he moves from side to side, he jumps from one side to the other, throws punches from all angles. Mayweather is just very defensive but just throws the straight right hand, the jab, jab to the body… you know stuff like that. Very basic.”

It’s nice to hear someone other than Pacquiao fans give Manny some credit for his activity and movement. With everyone just expecting Manny to run into right hands all night long, it’s about time someone talked about that crazy syncopated rhythm and movement that Manny brings into his biggest fights.

Garcia was then asked who he would rather fight, and he made no bones about it… he would rather fight Mayweather because he thinks Pacquiao could hurt him.

“I’d rather fight Mayweather ‘cause I know Mayweather’s not gonna hurt me. Pacquiao would knock me out, I think.” Garcia then proceeded to laugh.

You can’t blame Garcia… he was ringside for what Pacquiao did to Antonio Margarito, which is still one of the nastier extended beatings I have seen in the last decade or so.

With all of the naysayers out there whining about how much better this fight would have been five years ago, Garcia disagrees. He really doesn’t see it being all that different at all.

“I think they’re the same. The same fight we would have seen five years ago, I think we’re going to see the same fight.”

Garcia’s logic here is that both fighters’ skills may have diminished a bit, but they have diminished an equal amount on both sides. That’s fine, I’ll go with that. Many believe that Floyd’s legs aren’t what they once were, and Manny has lost some of the power he became famous for back in the day. Garcia could be right about them both declining at a similar rate.

We will see when Floyd Mayweather Jr. finally meets Manny Pacquiao in the ring. Will the fight have more action because Floyd has slowed down? Will it have less action because Manny isn’t as aggressive as he once was? At least our speculation has an expiration date. May 2nd, live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena.