Exclusive: Teddy Atlas Says Manny Pacquiao Power Gone, ‘You Figure Out Why’

UNCASVILLE, Conn.—ESPN fight analyst Teddy Atlas tells Breitbart Sports that Manny Pacquiao has lost size and power, instructing, “You figure out why.”

“Manny’s not the puncher that he was six years ago,” Atlas tells Breitbart Sports. “He’s not even as big physically. You figure out why. I don’t know. There’s a distinct difference in the Manny of six years ago and the Manny now.”

Pacquiao last knocked out an opponent ten fights and five-and-a-half-years ago. The stoppage slump follows a stretch in which he finished legends Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales, dumped Juan Manuel Marquez three times in the opening round of their first-fight draw, and delivered a perfect-punch true knockout of Ricky Hatton. One of Floyd Mayweather’s conditions for fighting Pacquiao involved the imposition of strict, Olympic-style drug testing for the pugilists, which the Filipino agreed to.

Teddy Atlas’s thoughts on the Pacquiao power outage came during a conversation with Breitbart Sports ringside at Mohegan Sun Arena after the most recent installment of ESPN’s Friday Night Fights. The celebrated trainer of former heavyweight champion Michael Moorer talked at length about the May 2 match that dominates boxing talk.

He foresees Floyd Mayweather holding, running, and pot-shotting—one-off strikes that generally score points rather than stun opponents—against the underdog, whom he believes possesses a chance to win.

“Floyd has always been a conservative guy—a defensive guy, a careful guy, a really, really smart successful boxer,” Atlas notes. “But now, in the second [Marcos] Maidana fight, he showed that at 38 years of age and a lot of money in the bank and thinking about the sunset, he’s even more careful.”

For ringside voyeurs to get their $10,000 worth, Pacquiao will need to intelligently press the action, the high-energy analyst and trainer says.

“The making of a good fight probably will be on the shoulders for the most part of Manny,” Atlas judges. “That’s more his style. It’s going to be more his responsibility to bring the fight.”