By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao appears to have been on a downward career spiral since his third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez in November of 2011 in a fight that pretty much the entire world saw Pacquiao losing, but yet he was still give a victory by the judges.
Since that fight, Pacquiao has lost his last two fights to Tim Bradley and Marquez, and things are starting to look desperate for the Filipino.
His promoter Bob Arum resisted the notion that Pacquiao needed a tune-up fight to make sure that he’s still able to take a heavy shot following his brutal 6th round knockout loss to Marquez last December.
Arum saw no point in a tune-up for Pacquiao; hence that’s why Pacquiao is fighting Brandon Rios on November 23rd in Macau. China.
It’s an incredibly risky thing to do in my view, and reminds me a little of how Antonio Margarito was put in with Miguel Cotto in December 2011 after Margarito hadn’t fought in over a year and was coming off of three separate eye surgeries.
I still don’t know why Arum didn’t have a tune-up bout for Margarito to see if his eye could take the wear and tear of a fight because putting him in with Cotto after three eye surgeries and no tune-ups seemed to be a recipe for disaster for Margarito.
We already know what happened in the Cotto-Margarito 2nd fight. Margarito’s surgically operated on right eye swelled shut and it cost him the fight.
Now we have Pacquiao going into a tough fight with Rios without a tune-up after having been knocked unconscious by Marquez last December. It doesn’t look like a smart thing for Pacquiao to do, and I’m wondering why he doesn’t want a tune-up. It’s not just Arum and Pacquiao who feel he doesn’t need a tune-up.
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach also doesn’t see any point in Pacquiao taking a tune-up bout. If Pacquiao goes out there and looks great and destroys Rios, then all of them will be looked at as geniuses. But if Pacquiao goes out there and gets knocked cold by Rios, then boxing fans will wonder why Arum and Roach didn’t have Pacquiao fight a tune-up bout to see if he could still take a shot without hitting the deck hard.
I think if Pacquiao gets knocked out in this fight with Rios then he’s going to need to consider retirement because that would be his second straight knockout loss, and I doubt he’s going to want to sit idle for another 11 months before fights again.
Comments are closed.