K.O.D. - Grievous Angel

This week, to get us all primed and ready for the biggest night that boxing has seen in years, our Knockout of the Week series will be the Knockout of the Day, as we will showcase daily a classic Oscar De La Hoya or Floyd Mayweather Jr. stoppage of the past in search of some clues as to what we might see in the ring this Saturday night.

We begin with Floyd's second-round TKO of Angel Manfredy in 1998. Manfredy was riding high at that point, with stoppages of Jorge Paez and Arturo Gatti in the previous year. But he was no match for the preternatural Mayweather speed. This bout illustrates well how that speed makes it a very tricky business to try and approach Floyd aggressively. It's generally taken for granted that you must pressure him, because if you let him set the pace, he will pick his spots all night, in and out, in and out, and because of that speed and his phenomenal defensive instincts, you'll never, ever hit him with a meaningful punch. On the other hand, if you do pressure him and take the initiative, you have to deal with the fact that - 1. he is the best counter-puncher of his generation, and 2. like maybe no one since Ali, he fights brilliantly and powerfully stepping backwards.

Of course, Angel Manfredy is no Oscar De La Hoya. There is almost no chance whatsoever that Floyd stops Oscar in two - he just will not have that kind of power at 154, not to mention the fact that Oscar has proven his beard against much bigger bangers than Mayweather. Floyd gets his stoppages from accumulated punishment, usually in rounds seven to ten. He doesn't have a KO on his record since Justin Juuko in 1999 (although he actually would have murdered Gatti if they hadn't called that one). But the fact remains that if Oscar is going to follow the c.w. on Floyd and stalk him relentlessly, he's going to have to eat a lot of clean shots, often in breakneck combinations. The question is, how long can he take two (or three, or five) to land one, and can he, somewhere along the line, make that one THE one?