Pacquiao vs. Rios: Pac-Man's Victory Does Not Guarantee Future Success

Manny Pacquiao did what he was supposed to do. For 36 minutes on an early Sunday afternoon in Macau, China, he treated Brandon Rios as little more than a patsy. Pulverizing both of his eyes until they were beet red and partially shut, Pacquiao scored his first victory in two years with a unanimous-decision win that felt preordained.

From the way the fans at The Venetian Macau were screaming "Manny! Manny!," it was easy to mentally hit the rewind button and imagine we were back in 2011. For most of the fight, this felt like an in-his-prime Manny Pacquiao outcome.

Pac-Man stalked the ring, picking his spots beautifully and landing a series of combinations. As the HBO announcing team astutely pointed out, this wasn't the same Pacquiao that got cold-clocked against Juan Manuel Marquez or was shockingly defeated by Timothy Bradley. The balls-to-the-wall aggression from the Marquez match was toned down ever so slightly, but not enough to allow Rios to reenter the fight the way it did against Bradley.

This was, in many ways, the perfect blend between Manny Pacquiao the boxer and Manny Pacquiao the human specimen meant to bash peoples skulls in.

That's all well and good. And, as far as a mostly terrible beatdown goes, this was a relatively entertaining way to spend an hour. Pacquiao is a lot of things, but boring isn't one of them. 

Why is it, then, that the result feels like it tells us nothing of the future? Had Pacquiao lost, there were many pundits (including myself) wondering whether this would be it for his career. Whether he had taken one too many punches. Whether the only reason Pacquiao entered the ring in the first place was because he, like many fighters, cannot financially survive without another paycheck.

Now, who the hell knows?

The biggest "criticism" coming out of the fight—if you can call it that—is that Pacquiao didn't finish Rios off. He was left standing at the end of 12 rounds, so it obviously wasn't good enough. I'm not going to comment one way or another; Pacquiao sure looked the part on Sunday. We'll have to get the "Sports Science" guys to tell us whether Manny Pacquiao's punches have the force of eight watermelons falling from the Empire State Building or just six now.

Whatever.

All this fight really told us is that Pacquiao isn't totally done. The victory was more than enough to likely earn him a rematch against Bradley, at which point we media types can start revving up our engines on the redemption storylines we already had tucked away a year ago. It could cause some people to wonder whether a Floyd Mayweather bout is still possible, as if that isn't the boxing equivalent of Tim Tebow at this point.

The reality is that this fight, no more or no less, proved that Pacquiao still deserves consideration among the world's pound-for-pound best. Pacquiao beat Rios because even a cooked Manny Pacquiao would beat a 100 percent ready Brandon Rios nine times out of 10.

Rios wasn't a fighter taking a step up too soon, as Saul "Canelo" Alvarez was against Mayweather. There was a feeling in that Alvarez-Mayweather bout that, had Money May waited one or two more years to take on the burgeoning Mexican, the result could have been different. Alvarez has a long future in the sport as a main-event draw.

There was no such speculation with Rios. He was brought to China to get the biggest payday of his boxing career, up his international profile and get his face bashed in. This was a kid who is even a step down from Mike Alvarado, who was picking him apart in their first bout before Rios TKO'd him in the seventh round. Essentially, Rios was a kid who got a 900 on his SAT being expected to ace a Quantum Condensed Matter Theory course at Harvard. 

This was always bound to end in a sad destruction.

Pacquiao was the smarter, quicker and more powerful fighter with a better gameplan. Those factors tend to play a large role in determining the winner of a boxing match. Not even C.J. Ross could have screwed up those scorecards. 

It's probably true that, in the past, Pacquiao would have finished Rios off at some point in the later rounds. Rios had no second plan beyond "let's wear Manny out and hope he makes a Marquez-level mistake." The CompuBox wasn't even necessary to tell us how many power punches Pacquiao had landed compared to his opponent. It was eleventy-billion to twelve.

And yet, Pacquiao didn't finish the job. Is that because he suddenly lacks the finishing power he once had, or simply because he's attempting to adjust his strategy late in his boxing life?

Truth be told, neither you nor I know. Because Rios was only a good enough opponent to answer one question: Is Pac-Man done?

Now that it's clear there's still some gas left in the tank, now is where the real questions get answered. Was Pacquiao merely the victim of a lucky punch and nonsensical, fluky judging? Or is he at the point in his career where he needs to start fighting the welterweight equivalent of Lou Savarese and Francois Botha just to capitalize on whatever drawing power his name has left?

I'm not sure. But the sport of boxing is better off now that we'll get a chance to find out.

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