By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum thinks that his fighter Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) is slowly finding his way back to the way he used to fight many years ago when he was hitting guys and then trying to get out of the way of their shots. Arum thinks Pacquiao got stuck with a bad habit of trying to overpower his opponents following his 2nd round KO win over Ricky Hatton in 2009 rather than staying with his elusive style of fighting that had made Pacquiao what he was.
After Pacquiao’s win over Hatton, he beat Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito and Juan Manuel Marquez before suffering back to back losses to Tim Bradley and Marquez. In his last fight, Pacquiao beat Brandon Rios. Arum thinks that Pacquiao went back to his elusive style of fighting in the Rios fight, and he sees him as being back to where he was in 2009 now with his focus on being hit without getting hit back.
“Manny Pacquiao has finally gone back to his roots, fighting based on his great strengths, which is his elusiveness and his style of going in, attacking his opponent, and disappearing before the opponent can counter,” Arum said to thaboxingvoice. “Rios tried to counter Pacquiao all night, and was unable to due to Pacquiao’s skill.”
It’s interesting how people see what they want to see when they look at a particular fighter that they have a vested interest in having them succeed. The reality is that Pacquiao has fought with his same elusive style in all of his fights since the Hatton fight. The reason why Pacquiao lost to Bradley was because he didn’t fight hard enough for the full 3 minutes of each round. That was Pacquiao’s fault for being lazy and not fighting as hard as he should have. In Pacquiao’s stoppage loss to Marquez in 2012, Pacquiao was knocked out when he tried to rush in and land a quick shot. Pacquiao had been fighting in his usual elusive manner, and Marquez simply timed him and knocked him out cold.
Pacquiao was able to hit and Rios without being countered in that fight due to how slow Rios was. Arum picked one of his weaker opponents in his Top Rank stable, who had been schooled by Richard Abril and Mike Alvarado. Abril did the same things to Rios that Pacquiao did, but Rios was given the victory despite him appearing to lost 10 of the 12 rounds of the fight.
Arum needs to face the facts that Pacquiao is 35-years-old, and he’s getting old.
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