AFTER vacillating and giving us mixed signals, Sen. Manny Pacquiao will officially “unretire” and fight Jessie Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs) on November 5 at Las Vegas, Nevada.
Who is Jessie Vargas, by the way?
The best name on his resume is Timothy Bradley whom Manny fought three times.
Vargas lost to Bradley via decision in June 2015 but not without some controversy.
The fight had been entertaining with both men having their moments but Bradley clearly dominated majority of the rounds.
Vargas though, came on strong in the championship rounds, but this fight would be remembered more for what happened in the last ten seconds than the tremendous action that preceded it.
Vargas landed a monster right hand early in the final round which stunned “Desert Storm” and had him on queer street.
The warrior that he is, he soldiered on but got tagged by a huge left hook along the ropes.
Just then, the 10 second warning was given, but referee Pat Russel thought he had heard the end of the fight.
He quickly intervened and stopped the action.
Vargas mistakenly thought the ref stopped the fight on account of the beating he was dishing on Bradley and promptly started to celebrate prematurely.
A bewildered Bradley looked on confuses as to what was happening as he certainly thought he was fine and ready to continue.
The seconds ticked away and another boxing controversy was born.
DECISION. Of course, eveything was clarified later on and Bradley went on to win a unanimous decision on scores of 116-112, 115-112 and 117-111.
Afterwards the Vargas camp would make much of the fact that those precious 10 seconds would have been enough for their fighter to finish off Bradley.
The latter of course, scoffed at the idea and replied that he may have been buzzed but he was nowhere near the state of being close to being knocked out.
MATCHUP. In March of this year, Vargas scored a ninth round TKO over Sadam Ali to annex the vacant WBO welterweight diadem.
Clearly, the fact that Vargas is the holder of an alphabet belt is one of the considerations on why he was chosen as Manny’s comeback opponent.
But of course, there’s also the fact that he is tailor-made for the Pacman.
His record suggests that he doesn’t have much pop in those gloves, and his aggressive style will be perfect for Manny’s sharp-shooting ways.
And oh, did I mention he can be a bit slow and flat-footed too?
This is clearly Manny’s fight to lose, meaning he has all the advantages in this match-up and the only way he can lose is if he doesn’t train well or gets careless on fight night.
Matchmaking at its finest, folks.
But, as a fan, I’m still thankful they didn’t put him in there right away against the division’s monsters like Shawn Porter and Keith Thurman.
VERBATIM. “I’m training like a wild horse. I want to go down like my hero Sugar Ray Robinson in history.” – Kell Brook who fights Grennady Golovkin this weekend ( www.telegraph.co.uk)
LAST ROUND. It’s on Susan de Jesus who celebrates her birthday this week. Cheers! (Follow me on Twitter @ thelastround)
