Manny Pacquiao vs. Lucas Matthysse: Knockout Video Replay, Fight Stats, Reaction

Manny Pacquiao, 39 years old and 23 years into his professional boxing career, proved his doubters wrong on Sunday. A year removed from a frustrating, controversial decision loss to Jeff Horn, Pacquiao is once again a champion as he scored a seventh-round TKO win over Lucas Matthysse at the Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 

Here's the winning punch, per SportsCenter:

The win is the 60th of Pacquiao's career and earned him the WBA "regular" world welterweight title (Keith Thurman remains the WBA "super" champion at 147 pounds).

It was the Filipino legend's first win by stoppage since he knocked out Miguel Cotto in May of 2009, a statistic that sounds impossible for those who remember his prime but only demonstrates how far removed Pacquiao is from his peak form and why some question why he still chooses to fight. 

Perhaps it's because he knows he can still beat the right fighter. Matthysse has been a threat for much of his career, with 39 wins (36 by stoppage) in his career, but he looked slow, flat-footed and completely lost against a fighter four years his senior. He wasn't big enough to bully Pacquiao (like Horn did for a few rounds) or quick enough to string together combinations. He boxed at a middle distance, and was a sitting duck for most of the bout.

As the CompuBox fight stats show, it was an overwhelming display from Pac-Man: 

The knockout in the seventh was no fluke either; it was Matthysse's third trip to the canvas. The left-handed uppercut—a punch that was working throughout the fight for Pacquiao—was nearly a carbon copy of the one that sent Matthysse crumpling in the third round, per Top Rank Boxing:

The Argentinean never saw it coming. With his head leaning forward over his top foot and his guard way up, Matthysse put himself in the ideal position for a power shot like that, and Pacquiao split the gloves and delivered. 

The fifth-round knockdown saw Pacquiao land a short right hook to the temple. Matthysse appeared to absorb the blow, but a couple of seconds later he dropped to one knee, initiating a count from the referee. The punch was somewhat similar to the one that Viktor Postol used to earn a knockout win over Matthysse in 2015. 

The throwback display from Pacquiao earned cautious praise from Ring's Tom Gray:

Some like boxing journalist Andreas Hale and FightNights.com chalked up the ease with which Pacquiao controlled the fight to Matthysse's inability to pose a threat: 

The win at least shows that Pacquiao himself is capable of posing a threat in what is arguably boxing's most talented division.

"I'm still here," Pacquiao said, per ESPN.com's Nick Parkinson.

"Sometimes you just need to rest and get it back, and that's what I did."

Pacquiao did take a year between fights, but another year off would put him well past 40 years old. If he wants to cash in on the victory, he will have to set something up sooner. Matthysse hardly looked like his best self, which does make Pacquiao's true form hard to gauge, but he at least looked supremely fit and hungry for more.

It's clear Pacquiao and his promoters have the foundation for another big fight. He might even get back to pay-per-view status if he takes on a boxer like Thurman, Terence Crawford or Errol Spence Jr. 

Whether he should take on those guys or not is another question entirely, but this version of Pacquiao hardly looked like a boxer ready to quit.