Porter: Rios will take a lot of shots from Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 11/14/2013 - Comments

rios545By Chris Williams: Former sparring partner of Manny Pacquiao, the unbeaten welterweight contender Shawn Porter, believes that the boxing world is going to see the old version of Pacquiao in 9 days when he faces Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) on November 23rd in Macao, China. Porter sees Rios taking a ton of head shots in this fight and he wonders how he’s going to be able to take all those punches for 12 rounds.

We don’t know what Pacquiao is going to do once he starts getting hit by Rios in return. Yes, it’s likely that Pacquiao will land a of quick shots in the early going, but the question is what happens to him when he starts taking big head shots in return.

“I think he’s going to be able to bring the Manny Pacquiao that we’ve seen in the past to this fight with Brandon Rios,” Porter said to Hustleboss. “It could be the fact that he [Pacquiao] ain’t going to to take a lot of shots and we’ve see him take hard shots. I’d like to see what he’s [Rios] going to do against Manny. If he’s going to be able take those shots and keep coming.”

It’s definitely true that Rios is going to get hit a lot in this fight, but that’s kind of the norm for him and it’s expected. But it’s equally true that Pacquiao is going to get hit a lot in this fight as well, and I don’t see Rios turning into another Ricky Hatton like some people seem to think he’ll be. I hope for Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach’s sake that they’re not counting on Rios to pitch forward and end up face down on the canvas out cold like Hatton was in his loss to Pacquiao in 2009, because they could be in for a rude shock when Rios stubbornly stays on his feet and gives Pacquiao a fight he might not be ready for.

This fight is between the young and the old, and when you’re as old as the 35-year-old Pacquiao is, and you’re coming off the kind of brutal knockout loss like the one he experienced against Juan Manuel Marquez last December, the last thing you want to have to go through a tough fight against a young slugger with a steel chin like Rios.

Porter may remember Pacquiao at his best during their sparring sessions but that was when Pacquiao was a little younger, before his knockout loss to Marquez, and with large gloves on Porter and head gear on Pacquiao to protect him from the shots. Besides that, Porter isn’t the puncher that Rios is, so it doesn’t matter that Pacquiao was able to take his head shots during their sparring sessions because he’s not Rios and doesn’t have his kind of punching power. Rios is bigger and stronger than Porter is and be wearing big gloves to protect Pacquiao’s head on November 23rd.



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