Manny Pacquiao vs. Brandon Rios: Grading Pac-Man's Winning Performance
Suddenly, it’s as if he’d never left.
In the aftermath of Manny Pacquiao’s near shutout of Brandon Rios in a pay-per-view event that stretched from Saturday night to Sunday morning in China, the Filipino’s stock has already risen nearly to where it had been when he’d last appeared 11 months prior.
So complete was the eight-division champion’s dominance of his significantly younger and supposedly stronger foe that it’s already reawakened hopes that he will one day face Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a matchup of the century’s two most prolific fighters.
Regardless of how you feel a match with “Money” would turn out, it’s hard to contend that Pacquiao’s performance against Rios was anything other than sterling in nearly every possible measure.
Read on for our grades in five categories and feel free to chime in with your own assessments in the comments section.
Speed and Quickness
1 of 5
As many predicted going in, the first category was clearly the most decisive for Pacquiao over each one of the 12 rounds.
His advantages in athleticism allowed him to start and end every combination and subsequently escape before Rios had a chance at returning fire. The mouthy underdog’s only strategy from the opening bell was a prolonged war of attrition, and by the end of three minutes it was obvious he had no chance at sustaining his signature brand of punishment.
Grade: A+
Defense
2 of 5
The best offense in football may indeed be a great defense. But when it came to Pacquiao’s best means of avoiding punishment against Rios, it was his own offense that kept him abrasion-free.
While opponents like Mike Alvarado (at least in their first fight) fell prey to Rios by landing shots and robotically waiting for the Californian’s returns, Pacquiao showed his class by using angles and constantly keeping his man on the move—and therefore unable to unleash his own power shots.
No matter how much Rios may have wanted to engage in a firefight, Pacquiao simply never came close to allowing it to occur. In the end, according to Compubox statistics (via Yahoo!), he landed 281 shots to his opponent’s 138—and it seemed a much-wider disparity in real time.
Grade: A
Power
3 of 5
The only opening through which critics could conceivably pick nits about Pacquiao’s performance was in the power department, after he landed 223 blows labeled as power punches but nonetheless never had Rios in anything resembling serious trouble.
Rios took clean blows to the head in Rounds 1 through 12 and barely buckled, which extended Pacquiao’s streak of fights without a stoppage in his favor to seven—five wins, two losses—dating back to a 12th-round TKO of Miguel Cotto in November 2009.
Still, the volume of precise shots dissuaded Rios from an all-out attack once it was clear he had no other alternatives to put toward winning the fight.
How much of the absence of a KO is due to Pacquiao being bereft of power or to Rios simply being one of the world’s sturdiest fighters is open for debate.
Grade: B
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Ring Generalship
4 of 5
From Minute 1 to Minute 36, Pacquiao controlled the pace, the spacing and the territory of the get-together in Macau, and he never let Rios come close to establishing a beachhead from which to mount a sustained attack of his own.
If Pacquiao had been fighting on his routine twice-per-year schedule, the effort would have been impressive enough. Considering he’d not been in a ring in 11 months and was left face-down on the mat at the close of his last encounter, it was a near virtuoso effort for the Filipino.
Grade: A
Overall Effectiveness
5 of 5
Speed and quickness, defense, power and ring generalship: Put together clear advantages in all those categories and you get a one-sided affair, which all three judges saw while scoring the bout 120-108, 119-109 and 118-110, all in Pacquiao’s favor.
Pacquiao entered the match as a sizable favorite, but the level to which he dominated the capable Rios seems to have surprised—pleasantly—even those who picked him for a victory going in.
And as for those who backed Rios, they’re convinced now, too.
“Pacquiao fought great tonight,” said Rios’ trainer, Robert Garcia. “I think we've all seen the best Pacquiao.”
Grade: A
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