Both Manny Pacquiao and Brandon Rios have yet to pack their bags for Macau, but their Nov. 24 bout has been listed as lead candidate for fight of the year.
The fight may not outslug Ruslan Provodnikov’s savage conquest of Mike Alvarado in both drama and daring.
But there are many who don’t expect the fight to be decided by the ringside judges.
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One of them is four-division world champion Roy Jones Jr., who will be at ringside to do the stellar bout for HBO.
A sucker for great action-packed fights, Jones predicts an early finish, with the combatants throwing patented bombs at each other,
“If Pacquiao drops Rios, that won’t come as a surprise,” Jones said. “But if Pacquiao scores a knockdown but fails to finish Rios, he’s gonna have his hands full.”
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Anyway, to those who thought the noontime slugout in Macau on Nov. 24 won’t generate enough pay-per-view sales because it’s being staged away from the United States, Pacquiao’s drawing power may yet prove the doubters wrong.
The Pacman is still great like ready available juicy hot dog on the side streets of New York.
This was stressed by a vacationing Filipino columnist of the famous Balita, who’s visiting with his daughter in the US.
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“My brother, I am now in the land of Uncle Sam,” Bert de Guzman, award-winning Tagalog poet, explained in a text message yesterday. “I’ve asked taxi drivers here around Queens, New York, they were unanimous in picking Pacquiao over Rios, a Mexican-American.”
Brother Bert, a college chum, went on to detail the reason behind the strong preference for Pacquiao:
“Sabi nila matapang si Manny, unlike Bradley and Mayweather who kept running away during a fight.”
It was added Pacquiao has remained a hot favorite because of his grim toe-to-toe style of fighting.
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Helping to whet the appetite of hot-blooded fans is the continued claim by Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, who has been insisting a knockout win—the earlier the better—is the sole option for his prized warrior.
Roach insisted Rios cannot remain on his feet past round six.
“This is Manny at his original best, that knockout loss to Marquez last year is totally gone, nowhere in his system,” Roach boasted.
Rios retorted this is his time, and he’s going to Macau to claim full stardom.
Pacquiao has insisted this is still his time, although he has got to score a redeeming win to regain his star.