International

37-year-old Manny Pacquiao was very economical with his punches tonight in winning a less than impressive 12 round unanimous decision victory over World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Jessie Vargas on Top Rank pay-per-view. Pacquiao fought like he was afraid to get clipped by Vargas. Many of the rounds were very close, and the only reason why were close was because looked timid. The fight took place at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. It wasn’t a sellout, which doesn’t surprise me. It wasn’t a big enough fight.

There was a flash knockdown that Pacquiao scored in the 2nd round. Vargas wasn’t hurt. It was more of a case of Vargas being off balance after throwing a shot of his own. Pacquiao hit him with a weak left hand that put him down.
     Pacquiao picked up his 59th win of his career, and his record is now 59-6-2 with 38 knockouts. Vargas (27-2, 10 KOs) showed gritty determination by standing in the pocket and not running from Pacquiao like we’d seen from other fighters over the years. The good news for Vargas was he was willing to stay in front of the Filipino star. What was bad was Vargas wasn’t throwing punches half the fight. He was giving Pacquiao WAY too much respect. If it had been me in the ring with Pacquiao, they would have had to pull me off of him, because I would have been throwing shots 24/7. That’s the way to beat Pacquiao. Juan Manuel Marquez and Floyd Mayweather created the blueprint in how to beat Pacquiao, and that’s by staying busy.