By Eric Thomas: Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) sees this Saturday’s fight against Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) as his opportunity to show off his skills to the U.S fans that weren’t aware of who he was before this fight. Rios plans on showing off his talent while in the process of beating the 34-year-old Pacquiao and sending him into retirement.
Rios said at the weigh-in on Friday “My heart and my balls, that’s how I beat him. I want that title. This is to Freddie Roach. Supposedly I had trouble making 147. This is my coming out party for me. No one’s giving me a chance, but I’m going to show them what I’ve got.”
Like in a lot of fights involving Pacquiao, Roach has started out with a knockout prediction with Pacquiao knocking him out in the later rounds and worked his way down to the 4th. It would be surprising if Roach doesn’t drop down even further by tomorrow to make it a 1st or 2nd round KO prediction.
Rios would seem to be the perfect opponent for Pacquiao to beat due to his slow hand speed and his tendency to get hit a lot. That may be so, but Pacquiao is going to need to land a lot of shots for him to get the steel-chinned Rios out of there because he can take a healthy shot. Rios was staggered briefly in losing to Mike Alvarado last March, but it came after Rios had been hit a lot by the bigger and stronger Alvarado. Pacquiao can punch, but he’s not the same size as Alvarado and he probably isn’t quite as powerful a puncher as him. If Rios was able to take the best shots from Alvarado, then there’s a good chance that he’ll be able to stand up to Pacquiao’s best shots for 12 rounds.
The fight could get bloody if it goes into the later rounds because both guys are going to be absorbing a lot of head shots in this one, and with the scar tissue that both fighters have over their eyes, it seems logical that one or both of them will suffer a bad cut sooner or later.
Pacquiao has a lot to prove in this fight, as he was knocked out in his last fight. He want’s to show that he’s the same fighter that he once was. He feels that he’s the same fighter that he once was, and that’s why he wants to try even harder than he usually does to impress his fans. The danger here is Pacquiao might try too hard and end up moving into a shot like he did in his last KO defeat against Juan Manuel Marquez.
Rios is going to be following Pacquiao around the ring looking to land as many head shots as possible in an effort to duplicate the results that Marquez got. Pacquiao will have to come at Rios at some point to land his power shots, and this will give him a chance to try and hurt him the same way that Rios did. The way to defeat superior hand speed is to use timing, and that’s what Rios plans on doing to get to Pacquiao.
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