Pacquiao dominates Rios; Macau to dominate boxing

MACAU – The Sport headline of Monday’s (Nov. 25, 2013) South China Morning Post said it all, “Pacquiao Silences his doubters in Macau – Dominant performance against Brandon Rios in Macau to win WBO welterweight title shows Filipino superstar still has his speed and guile”.

Unus Alladin, who wrote the piece stated in his opening paragraph, “Manny Pacquiao is back. And it would seem he might still be around for a while after he delivered a command performance to lift the spirits of his struggling nation.”

We most certainly agree with Alladin and we say this after having had the privilege of being part of Solar Sports’ sports panel (together with fellow The STAR columnist Quinito Henson and Mike Ochosa) doing the blow-by-blow for TV. And that honor has been given to us several times: we were fortunate to have seen and be part of Philippine boxing history, specifically Pacquiao’s big slice of that history. This started with  his bout with Antonio Margarito at the Cowboys Stadium in Dallas in 2010 and  other exciting fights in Las Vegas: Shane Mosley, Juan Manuel Marquez (III and the shocking IV) and, this one, which could be considered Pacquiao’s comeback fight. We thank the Tieng brothers (William, Wilson and Willie) and the many others who work behind the scenes to make us comfortable during all these coverage. Early in Pacquiao’s career we also had the chance to cover his title defense against Gabriel Mira of Mexico at the Araneta Coliseum in 1999.

This was one Pacquiao fight which we waited for with mixed feelings though. When asked, our stock response was that Pacquiao would steamroller the very average Rios who only knew to go two ways: forward and forward again. Memories of that last second right straight in the evening of Dec. 7, 2012 from the souped-up Marquez were still fresh in our minds of that lucky punch. And we had thought Rios could land that punch on an onrushing Pacquiao who would like to make a statement by winning by knockout.

This time around, however, Pacquiao was definitely more patient and was intelligently picking his shots, frustrating the defiant Rios and throwing the Mexican-American’s timing off as the latter was unable to mount an offensive in the face of Pacquiao’s lightning hand speed and footwork. This time, it wasn’t Pacquiao’s power that carried him through, it was his speed and, as Alladin, calls it, guile (and experience).

We had scored the fight 120-108, in short a shut-out. Pacquiao won all 12 rounds with Rios getting nine points per round. There was talk in the panel about Rios winning rounds three and eight and it seems the panel’s own assessment was consistent with those of the official scores: 120-108; 119-109 (one round for Rios) and 118-108 (two rounds for the brash former lightweight champion).

The day before, after the weigh in, there was talk of Rios having some kind of difficulty making the weight limit of 147 pounds. He weighed in officially at a little over 146 pounds but there was more talk that right after his turn at the scales Rios moved to a side of the stage to down two bottles of electrolytes. This attempt at rehydration was confirmed Sunday morning by a friend who’s father was attended to by the same physicians who knew about Rios’s rehydrating routine.

The scuttlebutt is that Rios’s discipline is far from wanting and that in working himself up from lightweight (135 pounds) to welterweight (147 pounds), he may have overindulged himself and had to drastically bring himself back down to the welterweight limit a few days before the fight. 

In the dressing room during the customary Solar post-fight interview, we asked Pacquiao if Rios did any different than what they had planned for. Pacquiao emphatically said “no.” . In short, Rios’ trainer, Robert Garcia, and Rios himself had planned in Rios just landing that one big punch which they were thinking Pacquiao would not be able to take since Garcia himself had said that the Pacquiao of three or four years ago isn’t the same Pacquiao in 2013 in Macau.

Now, the future. For Rios, he needs to make big adjustments to his fighting style. He doesn’t bob or weave. He doesn’t have side-to-side movement and most of all he is slow of hand and foot. That means a complete overhaul. Garcia should be able to take care of that. He isn’t Trainer of the Year for nothing.

For Pacquiao, it should be Timothy Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez and, if Top Rank, Golden Boy Promotions and Floyd Mayweather Jr’s own promotional outfit can arrive at a modus vivendi, we should have the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight that the world has been waiting for. It’s all about pride and, of course, money.

As for Macau, it will rival Las Vegas as an entertainment destination which is Las Vegas’ edge now. Macau’s infrastructure development is going full blast. For example, by 2016, the 47-kilometer bridge linking Hong Kong to Macau and built at a cost of US $40 billion would have been finished. In the meantime, hotels and other facilities are being set up. Macau has become the boxing mecca.