Macau, China -- Former eight division champion Manny Pacquiao won impressively in a one-sided affair against tough-as-nail Mexican/American opponent Brandon Rios.
“I’m no punching bag" said Rios as a response to the press during the final presser. But last night Rios looked like one, and can't punch back the desired combination he needed to make every round more competitive. The obvious difference: is the speed. Not the power.
Pacquiao, now improved his record to 55-5-2 (KO 38), used his superior foot speed to outmaneuver and fast combinations to outland the much slower California brawler Brandon Rios. Pacquiao won a lopsided unanimous decision with the scores of 119-109, 120-108, and 118-110. Thanks that there is no odd scoring tonight.
Pacquiao, according to this punch graphic from ESPN with statistics from Compubox, landed 48 percent of his power shots against Brandon Rios. Most of Pacquiao punches landed on both side of Rios' face.
Talking about Pacquiao's power, it seemed that it was the same it used to be. It’s just that Brandon Rios has a granite chin. A very tough hombre to crack, I gave credit to his toughness, not that Pacquiao's power has diminished. Those kinds of punches that landed on Rios used to drop lesser opposition.
Rios, now 31-2-1 (KO 23), was unable to impose his seek-and-destroy style as Pacquiao was very quick on his feet and constantly moving around the ring. Rios' will to win had no match for Pacquiao's elusiveness.
This is by far the lowest punch output of Rios (based on the link above) its either he was very busy defending his himself or looking for Pacquiao that he forgot to let his hands go.
Pacman proved that his career is 'not done yet', now, I'm excited with the monetary figures for this fight. Did Arum unlock the potential in China? Are we going to see more fights of this magnitude frequently in Macau? Does Pacquiao next fight would still be outside the US?
No comments:
Post a Comment