Manny Pacquiao rolled back the years to beat Adrien Broner in style, setting up a potential Floyd Mayweather rematch in the summer
- Manny Pacquiao romped to a straight-forward decision victory over Adrien Broner on Saturday.
- Broner, despite being 11 years Pacquiao's junior, was woefully out of his depth and surrendered almost all of the rounds to the unrelenting and merciless Filipino fighter.
- Pacquiao can now campaign for a lucrative rematch against old rival Floyd Mayweather, who was sitting ringside at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Manny Pacquiao, 40, rolled back the years to beat Adrien Broner, 29, on Saturday, potentially setting-up a lucrative Floyd Mayweather rematch in the summer.
Broner was off-form, slow, and second-best throughout his WBA world welterweight championship bout against Pacquiao, and the Filipino fighter was able to dictate the fight with his strong left hand, solid combination punching, and intuitive movement.
Far removed from his prime athletic and pugilistic years when he pulverized opponents at will, Pacquiao still managed to outwork Broner, throwing 70 jabs through round three, before ramping up his attack with brutal overhand rights and body shots by the sixth.
If the younger Broner thought the older Pacquiao would slow down in the second half of the fight, he thought wrong as the seventh was a big round for the veteran. At one point, Pacquiao had Broner hurt on the ropes, giving the Las Vegas crowd its first sense of an early finish, as he took heavy shot after heavy shot.
The key to Pacquiao's success throughout the fight was a simple southpaw jab to the body, which opened up Broner's defensive guard and allowed Pacquiao to then pepper Broner's face with violent combinations.
Here is one of those body shots:
By the ninth, Pacquiao almost had Broner down, on the floor, and ready to receive a count, as Pacquiao's speed and piercing punching power relented late in the bout.
Broner attempted to nullify Pacquiao but his single-shot counter-punching strategy failed to limit his opponent's aggression, and before long all he could do was hit reverse and dance around the ring, attempting to escape Pacquiao, like he had accepted defeat.
That defeat came at the end of the 12th, after the final bell, when the three ringside judges announced a decision victory for the dominant Pacquiao, teeing up a potential Mayweather rematch worth hundreds of millions of dollars to both combatants.
More to follow…