Take a moment of silence to reflect. Now that youve done that- I want you to stare at the face of Brandon Rios. Do it again. While you were doing that, I was taking a moment to reflect on a man and his nation, having endured the ravages of a storm and its “afterwrath”. For Manny Pacquiao and Brandon Rios, this word, which won’t appear in any dictionary, has two different meanings. Let’s start with Filipino icon Pacquiao, in the wake of his comprehensive destruction of Brandon Rios. Coming into this bout with Rios, Pacquiao had never been subjected to more doubt or daunting pressure, as many reporters and analysts of the sport besieged him with doubt, and hung into question the “wiseness” of his choice of the dangerous Rios in his return from the Marquez defeat. Many of these same reporters and analysts actually picked Rios to defeat Pacquiao outright, or scare the hell out of him while challenging him greatly in defeat. Pacquiao had to listen to all of this, while constantly reliving images of himself every time he walked past a flatscreen, in what would be many of our favorite sleeping positions last December in Las Vegas, courtesy of a Marquez right hand from The Milky Way. His congressional obligations suspended to prepare for Rios, there’s no way that the altruist within allowed him to ignore his connection to a nation of unspeakable poverty. Compound that with Typhoon Haiyan’s wrath on his people with the impending dark forecast of Rios, and I’ll tell you that no champion in the history of boxing faced more pressure coming into a fight than Manny Pacquiao did last night. And all he did was turn Brandon Rios into a human piñata for 12 brutally one-sided rounds. Not only did Rios represent the ultimate pressure fighter, he was also an upgrade over the last one Pacquiao faced who happened to be trained by Robert Garcia. His name was Antonio Margarito. Re: Pacquiao’s Greatest Victory May Have Been His Costliest Defeat In the above article, I wrote about almost the same size disparity I’m going to mention now. I’m also going to tell you, with a fair amount of certainty, that Floyd Mayweather (and I’ll get to my real point of mentioning him shortly) was afraid of Antonio Margarito because of the size differential. What was so remarkable to me about Pacquiao’s performance last night was that he was able to shut off negative re-call while facing a younger, and deadlier, “Margarito-like” clone. He faced not only a Robert Garcia who used prior knowledge of his last challenge of Roach and Pacquiao, but a man in Alex Ariza who aided him greatly during his unprecedented rise. Manny Pacquiao is not really a welterweight. He’s just not. He’s really a 140lb “supernatural” fighter in my estimation. Ariza saw up close and personal what type of damage Pacquiao dished out on the much larger Margarito. A normal fighter is just not supposed to do that, not to that much bigger of a man, while surviving the weight of his punches for 12 rounds. Now working with Garcia, Ariza helped mold Rios into a reasonable facsimile, who if he didn’t hit harder- struck with more frequency and tenacity- and never quit. He weighed over 160lbs last night and used all of it and more. All things being equal, I thought Pacquiao looked magnificent. I’ll also point out that The Ring’s respectable fight scribe and Editor, Dougie Fischer, and the “great” Max Kellerman (I’m a big fan of Max) of HBO, should re-assess their somewhat scathing and knee jerk post fight assessment of Pacquiao. They were in a word: WRONG. Max just simply acted like an impetuously ungrateful child, while Fischer came across as a crass and obnoxious person of dementia. He’s the same person who picked Canelo Alvarez to beat Mayweather outright (while providing excellent analysis I might add), and who now says that Pacquiao and Mayweather are worlds apart in terms of ability and skill. He also said – get this- that Pacquiao no longer appears to be an “elite” fighter. Kellerman for his part, sounded as if he felt Pacquiao turned in a desultory performance and actually “pouted” on air. In the ring, you sometimes fight to the level of your opponents “speed and size”, and to beat an ever advancing bigger man with volume, you’d better conserve energy if and when you can. But neither Max nor Dougie would know anything about this- because they can’t fight and never have. The Rios gameplan was designed to wear Pacquiao out and stop him late. But Pacquiao, to his credit, was actually in position to stop Rios late, while exercising a [proper] caution weve never seen. Ironic. The tough talking Mayweather is often “credited” for being cautious (and boring- let’s be honest) in victory. He faced a drained Alvarez, who as Andre Ward correctly pointed out at the weigh-in for their September 14th affair, could “hardly stand up” at the podium. It was Floyd who stated that Pacquiao’s win over Miguel Cotto should not count because it was a “145lb catchweight from 147”, yet he’s the unquestioned best fighter in the world for beating a “152lb catchweight” fighter from 154lbs and a counter-puncher to boot. No one says anything about this, including Kellerman or Fischer, and it is nothing short of hypocritical. Pacquiao showed enough movement, dexterity, speed, savvy and explosive volume punching to still warrant inclusion among the world’s very best fighters. “Pacquiao is still one of the best, and he has a lot more fight in him,” said Robert Garcia, who’ll never be seen at a bar with Freddie Roach. “We were very sure we would break him down and stop him. I’m very surprised. What he did was very impressive.” More than likely, Mayweather probably agrees with this “afterwrath” assessment, and will be content to keep this to himself. He’s developed a false comfort in the notion that he’d beat Pacquiao with ease, at least according to so many experts, a few of which who seem to buy the idea that Pacquiao is a “has been”. Fine. But see, when we were all back in high school, if you were the duke of the school, you didnt get credits for fights kids “thought” you’d win. You proved it. Floyd, actually a “senior” to Pacquiao’s sophomore if you will, given he’s two years older, is now in a situation where virtually everyone it seems, feels he can now beat Pacquiao with ease. If I may borrow a quote from Antonio Tarver prior to his smashing of Roy Jones, “You got any excuses tonight Floyd?” No more foreplay. The time has come for Floyd Mayweather to face Manny Pacquiao: NOW. Copyright John Gatling NY Boxing Examiner November 14, 2013
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 05:29:40 +0000
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