Featherweights: Naseem Hamed vs Manny Pacquiao

[elmersalsa]

It would be a war with a couple of knockdowns. Who is the best fighter?

Both fighters can punch.

[Cutman Scabbers]

What a fun fight to watch!!

[emallini]

Naz by disgusting repugnant diabolical 1 punch KO

[scorpio83]

Both would feint and exchange punches, but Pacman would catch the Prince and batter him for the late round TKO win.

[margaret thatcher]

pac of course

[zuru]

MP overwhelms him as he is unfazed by Hameds shenanigans for a ud

[DrDuke]

Pac by KO somewhere in the middle.

[dan28uk]

ii think pacs in and out buzz saw style would cause naz a lot of problems but naz would definitely win rounds but pac 116-112 for me

[Jeff_lacy_ko]

Pac is much better than naz

[Ambling Alp II]

Agreed. Might be fairly competitive, might not be. Pac would win.

[p4p1]

Pacman is the greater fighter, better just about everywhere and would win 9/10 times.
Naz has a good punchers chance. The first thing to watch would be the activity, even active fighters' output slowed significantly against Naz because of his counter punching ability and power. If Pac slows down and doesn't get into his usual rhythm then Naz could put away enough points to take a decision. I don't believe that Freddie Roach would allow Pac to slow down to Hamed's pace though. If Pac can force the pace of the fight he can easily outwork Naz to take a clear comfortable decision. He could conceivably break Naz down the longer the fight goes but we never saw Naz in serious danger of being stopped at any point in his career, even when knocked down.
Another factor would be the battle of the two fighters movements. Pac's output and movement could create an excellent counter to Naz's unorthadox movement that at times could cause him to become stuck and get caught. The flip side of that is that Naz's own movement could time Pacquiaos and his own hand and foot speed which may be an underrated aspect of his fighting, particularly before he fell in love with his power, could put Pacman in a position in which he gets caught hard and hurt.
If Pac got drawn into a war, which he loved to do it could be his undoing. The Prince may have had the biggest one shot power in the divisions history. I have seen interviews with his sparring partners who, while I am sure are exaggerating, compared his power to a HWs.
Pacquiao should win and I believe would be winning the fight but I could just see him getting caught in a similar fashion to how Marquez caught him.

If I was Pacs trainer for the fight I would tell him to fire off and get straight back, don't worry about stopping the guy. Then we would reasses as the fight wore on how Naz was handling the pace. If he was clearly tired and slowing I would tell Pac to stay in longer and throw more with bad intentions, if not, continue using in and out movement and speed. Pacquiao IMO was a master at countering without looking like he was countering. Often it looked to me like he would throw stuff out there to stay busy but did his real work when his opponent would throw back and Pac could step in with combos as his opponent was throwing or after they had missed. I believe this is how Pac would and would have to fight Naz, throw stuff out there that essentially causes Naz to lead so he can be countered and put into an uncomfortable position. If Pacquiao decided to go to war he probably gets stopped.

[Bodyshot3]

The Prince gets his second Barrera-style schooling.....Naseem was fly, talented and made good fighters look clumsy.
He was also an entertainer and a serial risk-taker.

But one liberty against Pac and he's staring at the lights and even small mistakes result it a very hard punch in the mouth.

Paul Ingle who did not have Pac's firepower or Barrera's finesse gave Hamed 11 rounds of blood-and-thunder and that was a warning for Hamed up at Featherweight.

[Jason Calara]

The Prince have 10% chance of winning and have a big advantage in showmanship. The prime PACMAN is relentless, quick and strong and many thinks that PACMAN is easy to beat until...
Ricky Hatton, Cotto, Margarito, Broner, Bradley, etc was beaten by PACMAN and will give the prince a hard fight.
PACMAN wins.

[gilgamesh]

Pac either stops Hamed or drops him more than once on the way to a UD. He added more wrinkles to his game as he moved up in weight, but as good as he was the night he beat Barrera is all he'd need to be to beat the holy hell out of the very best Naseem Hamed.