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by David P. Greisman - The post-fight talk with the losing boxer is a ritual that is both necessary and potentially agonizing. It is the time when memories are fresh, yet wounds are raw.
Almost nothing pleasant could come, then, from the first post-fight interview with Brandon Rios — not from a man who had made his reputation by taking punishment in order to deliver it, but who had just been on the receiving end of nearly 300 punches solely for the sake of defeat.
It didn’t matter that the odds were against him, that this result was expected, that few believed Rios would beat the great Manny Pacquiao.
“Everybody looks at me as a punching bag,” Rios had said on a media conference call a few weeks before the fight.
He vowed to prove them wrong, to show that he wasn’t content with being flown thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean and getting paid millions of dollars just so he could make Pacquiao look good.
That’s what ended up happening, though.
This was a spotlight show for Pacquiao, whose style and speed rendered Rios powerless. Rios couldn’t turn the tide and wouldn’t be put away. Instead, he took 12 rounds of jabs, crosses, hooks and uppercuts, all of which came in a variety of combinations and from a variety of angles, an unpredictable and blinding barrage.
There was no one shot that finished him, just a veritable hornet’s nest, 281 stings that led him to the sting of defeat. [Click Here To Read More]
Almost nothing pleasant could come, then, from the first post-fight interview with Brandon Rios — not from a man who had made his reputation by taking punishment in order to deliver it, but who had just been on the receiving end of nearly 300 punches solely for the sake of defeat.
It didn’t matter that the odds were against him, that this result was expected, that few believed Rios would beat the great Manny Pacquiao.
“Everybody looks at me as a punching bag,” Rios had said on a media conference call a few weeks before the fight.
He vowed to prove them wrong, to show that he wasn’t content with being flown thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean and getting paid millions of dollars just so he could make Pacquiao look good.
That’s what ended up happening, though.
This was a spotlight show for Pacquiao, whose style and speed rendered Rios powerless. Rios couldn’t turn the tide and wouldn’t be put away. Instead, he took 12 rounds of jabs, crosses, hooks and uppercuts, all of which came in a variety of combinations and from a variety of angles, an unpredictable and blinding barrage.
There was no one shot that finished him, just a veritable hornet’s nest, 281 stings that led him to the sting of defeat. [Click Here To Read More]
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