Rios: I want to retire Manny Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 08/26/2013 - Comments

pac2222By Chris Williams: Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) continues to say that he not only wants to beat Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) on November 23rd, but he wants to also retire him and finish him off. Rios thinks he can get to Pacquiao by pressuring him a lot the way that Antonio Margarito did three years ago, and by hitting him in the body as well as the head.

Margarito had Pacquiao ready to drop after hitting him with a hard body shots, and Rios says he’s going to nail Pacquiao to the body to see how he takes it.

Rios said to Jenna Jay “He [Pacquiao] did not do so good against Margarito, and Antonio put pressure on, so that’s one thing I really want to do. I want to put pressure…we will see how he reacts to that…I want to go for body shots too…I want to say that I was the one to retire Manny Pacquiao.”

At this point in Pacquiao’s career, I think almost any good fighter with power would be in position to send him into retirement by landing one big punch to the head. It just happens to be Rios because he’s in the same Top Rank stable. But there are plenty of welterweights out there that could probably do the same thing to Manny.

The problem is Pacquiao is mainly fighting Top Rank fighters nowadays, so that kind of filters out a huge amount of potentially dangerous fighters that could expose Pacquiao and send him into retirement. Rios is far from being the best 140 lb. fighter in the division, but his power and his chin makes him a very dangerous opponent for the Filipino.

Pacquiao’s legion of fans think this is going to be an easy fight for him, but many of these same fans are going by what Pacquiao used to be rather than how he’s looked in his last three fights. You have to forget all about the Pacquiao from 4 years ago, because he’s no longer with us. Pacquiao is a much different fighter now at age 34, and he’s very vulnerable to a guy that has a great chin and good chin.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Rios is able to knock Pacquiao out with a body shot in this fight because Rios is a very good body puncher. If there’s one area that Pacquiao has had problems with in his career, it’s taking hard body shots. I think Rios could score a knockout that way rather than taking him out with a head shot like Juan Manuel Marquez did.



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