MANNY Pacquiao will fight again and look who he is facing: Brandon Rios.
The PacMan will come out of his longest ever boxing break when he battles Rios on November 24 in Macau.
Pacquiao, 35, is 54-5-2, with 23 knockouts, when he climbs the ring against Rios.
Rios, the Mexican from Oxnard, California, is 3-1,1, with 23 knockouts.
That record means Rios isn?t a pushover. In fact, that single loss of his came only last March, when he dropped a close 12-round brawl against Mike Alvarado.
Although the decision was unanimous, the fight could have gone either way as it was simply too close to call. This early, that bout is being bruited about as the most likely choice for The Fight of the Year.
Last year, their August fight was voted The Fight of The Year for 2012.
In that slambang of a bout, Rios won by scoring a technical knockout victory in the seventh, in the process inflicting Alvarado?s only loss.
But in their March rematch, Alvarado got his revenge and, in the process, also handing Rios his first setback in 32 fights.
Thus, it can be gleaned from those two fights that both fighters love to hate each other. And, more than that, any one of them has all the right to face Pacquiao, considering their brawling, no-more-tomorrow, style of fighting.
To backpedal is not in their vocabulary, making Rios the perfect match for Pacquiao, who also doesn?t have a reverse in his gearbox.
Pacquiao needs a knockout win since a points victory would only mean more embarrassment for the once mighty pound-for-pound king, whose last two fights ended in a points defeat and a sixth-round knockout, respectively.
Another loss could mean inevitable retirement for the eight-time champ in eight weight divisions. Three straight losses would be absolutely unacceptable.
Also, a win on points means PacMan is gutter-bound.
Not for anything but I believe Pacquiao is fighting Rios simply for money. The reason I might change his moniker from PacMan to Money.
And I hope that when I finally decide to do that, the original Money, Floyd Mayweather, wouldn?t mind.
It?s all business, anyways.
