Has soon to return superstar Manny Pacquaio lost his killer punch? As fans know, the one time King of Zing, the former Master of Disaster, the formerly unstoppable Filipino Tornado has not managed to stop an opponent since way back in 2009, when he TKO’d Miguel Cotto very late on in a good fight. Since then, in fighting 11 times, Pac-Man has come up short in the KO stakes (although he did bite the dust himself, in being sensationally flattened by four-fight rival Juan Manuel Marquez, in December of 2012, six fights after the win over Cotto).
The question is, has Manny’s ability at rendering a foe unconscious gone for good? The 37-year-old returns to action on November 5, when he will face a good, solid fighter in Jessie Vargas who, in compiling a 27-1 record, has never been stopped. Pacquiao’s choice of opponent for his return did not exactly thrill fans when it was announced, even though Vargas is genuinely world class, and the main talking point now is, can Pacquiao get a stoppage over a man most people expect him to defeat in Las Vegas?
Promoter Bob Arum has an explanation as to why his southpaw superstar has not been leaving bodies in his wake these past seven years. Speaking with Yahoo! Sports, the Top Rank boss said the reason Manny has failed to put any KO’s in the bag is down to his opposition, who chose to “survive” rather than fight Pac-Man hard, and this is why Pacquiao has been less effective at lowering the boom.
“We haven’t seen him knocking people out like he did so spectacularly at one period in his career,” Arum said. “He is scoring a lot of knockdowns. He had six knockdowns against [Chris] Algieri and he had [Tim] Bradley on the deck twice in his last fight. It’s not that he’s not hitting hard. He is hitting hard, but opponents fighting him are more cautious. The ability to knock out a guy isn’t a one-way street. It’s also the opponent. If the opponent is looking to survive and not firing as many shots as he could, then it’s a lot more difficult to do.”
Pacquiao critics (and Arum critics) are likely to call Arum’s explanation for the KO drought hogwash, after all, was Marquez looking to survive and not throwing as many shots as he could when he levelled Manny almost four years ago? Okay, Arum is right when he says Pacquiao is still hitting hard and scoring knockdowns, but have his finishing skills deteriorated? Has his killer instinct deserted him?
Pac-Man said, before his “final” fight with Bradley, how he wanted a spectacular KO win upon which to exit the sport. He couldn’t get it. Would the Manny of 2006, 2007, 2008 or 2009 have despatched “Desert Storm?” Maybe.
Let’s see if Pac-Man can gobble up Vargas and score his first stoppage win in what seems like a very long time.
