PAC's PED talk in 2008-2011 should be laid to rest for good

[Strategic1]

This version of PAC is still beating on younger guys in their prime. Facing and beating young hungry lions 7+ years younger than him. In this case beating Vargas 10 years younger while PAC is a month or so shy of turning 38.

In fact Pacquiao is not even a full time boxer and is working 9am to 7pm daily as a senator and is still beating guys.

Give credit to where it's due. At the time, PAC was prime. Now PAC has aged a bit but still has enough to beat the competition. The man is clearly not a 147 lber but still scores knockdowns (but not knockouts). He's just that good and is a special fighter.

[NearHypnos]

It's Vargas. Relax.

We all know Pac is special...beating Vargas isnt why

[Thraxox]

Be careful man, experts are just going to pop right out og nowhere calling you a ******* that knows nothing about boxing and on how things work. Or that Pacquioao is roided up.

[Strategic1]

Yep these 'experts' think Manny was knocking people out left and right ...but really he never really knocked people out cold at welterweight besides Hatton. He'd just punish guys to the point where the ref had to step in.

These haters just need to realize as Pac aged, his workrate gradually went down. And after KTFO6, he became a different fighter. He became a little less reckless, more careful, and focused a bit more on defence.

[Scipio2009]

This version of PAC is still beating on younger guys in their prime. Facing and beating young hungry lions 7+ years younger than him. In this case beating Vargas 10 years younger while PAC is a month or so shy of turning 38.

In fact Pacquiao is not even a full time boxer and is working 9am to 7pm daily as a senator and is still beating guys.

Give credit to where it's due. At the time, PAC was prime. Now PAC has aged a bit but still has enough to beat the competition. The man is clearly not a 147 lber but still scores knockdowns (but not knockouts). He's just that good and is a special fighter.

There's a difference between one-punching Ricky Hatton and then getting dragged through 12 rounds by Chris Algieri, Brandon Rios, and now Jessie Vargas.

Manny Pacquiao, almost literally, went from being an utter wrecking machine to not being able to stop/badly hurt anyone after 4 months.

Fighters are going to decline, whether it be in years or because of weight; just look at Floyd Mayweather Jr, who went from being a dynamic two-handed, power punching. boxer-puncher at 130lbs to being a good punching, tactical boxer-puncher at 140lbs, to ending things as a meticulous, defensive boxer-puncher at 147/154lbs. Over the course of ten years, Floyd became the fighter he ended up as.

Point to a single other fighter who basically fell off of their peak within a year.

[Redd Foxx]

As gracefully as he's aged, boxing-wise, I don't think he was using heavily back in the day. He'd likely be shot if he was through that whole period. I don't put PEDs past anyone, be it Floyd, Manny, etc. But, he clearly wasn't good just because of being 'on' something.

[Thraxox]

There's a difference between one-punching Ricky Hatton and then getting dragged through 12 rounds by Chris Algieri, Brandon Rios, and now Jessie Vargas.

Manny Pacquiao, almost literally, went from being an utter wrecking machine to not being able to stop/badly hurt anyone after 4 months.

Fighters are going to decline, whether it be in years or because of weight; just look at Floyd Mayweather Jr, who went from being a dynamic two-handed, power punching. boxer-puncher at 130lbs to being a good punching, tactical boxer-puncher at 140lbs, to ending things as a meticulous, defensive boxer-puncher at 147/154lbs. Over the course of ten years, Floyd became the fighter he ended up as.

Point to a single other fighter who basically fell off of their peak within a year.

After Miguel Cotto, he fought a turtle shell defense clottey who was on the high guard ALL NIGHT. And then a Durable Margarito and a Durable Mosley with Margo breaking his eye socket and mosley wanting to quit. All fighters manny fought other than Marquez were bigger than him by 10+ pounds or more.

[Strategic1]

There's a difference between one-punching Ricky Hatton and then getting dragged through 12 rounds by Chris Algieri, Brandon Rios, and now Jessie Vargas.

Manny Pacquiao, almost literally, went from being an utter wrecking machine to not being able to stop/badly hurt anyone after 4 months.

He knocked Algieri down 6 times. He's the first to knock down Vargas and Vargas has never been knocked out in his career. Rios is known to be a tough guy and at the time almost impossible to knock out.

Rios got knocked out by Bradly but from most accounts he had weight issues coming into that fight and wasn't looking good.

..Algieri was on his bike against Pac... and with his new trainer, chose to fight Spence toe to toe and he paid the price for it.

.....
Geez ...the haters are for real.

Pac is still scoring knock downs. It's just these guys don't stay down.

Since 2011...he scored knockdowns against Mosley, JMM, Algieri, Bradley, Vargas.......I don't know who else.... Clottey was a turtle, and Margarito paid the price with a damaged eye for life.

Let's be real here.

[BrometheusBob.]

There's a difference between one-punching Ricky Hatton and then getting dragged through 12 rounds by Chris Algieri, Brandon Rios, and now Jessie Vargas.

Manny Pacquiao, almost literally, went from being an utter wrecking machine to not being able to stop/badly hurt anyone after 4 months.

Fighters are going to decline, whether it be in years or because of weight; just look at Floyd Mayweather Jr, who went from being a dynamic two-handed, power punching. boxer-puncher at 130lbs to being a good punching, tactical boxer-puncher at 140lbs, to ending things as a meticulous, defensive boxer-puncher at 147/154lbs. Over the course of ten years, Floyd became the fighter he ended up as.

Point to a single other fighter who basically fell off of their peak within a year.

His punches still land hard, he still gets knockdowns, but he's throwing fewer punches in every successive fight with the exception of the Rios fight (but Rios is a pretty still target). To me it looks to be a very predictable and understandable decline with age. Explosive, offense heavy fighters like Pacquiao aren't usually still considered A-level at 37.

I also think the Marquez 4 stoppage played a huge impact. He said to Stephen A Smith something along the lines of him not wanting to get 'careless' when pursuing Vargas, which is the same word he used to describe as the reason to why Marquez stopped him. You can reasonably figure that he's still thinking about being knocked out that badly in each and every fight since then and it affects the decisions he makes in the ring.

I'm not sold on Ricky being a good example of his decline in punching power. People point to that KO as evidence that Pacquiao had some other worldly power at that point but I disagree. For one, I think Hatton's chin was not especially strong. Plus Hatton took many full, clean hooks and no Pacquiao opponents since then were as available for those kinda shots (except Rios, who has a sturdy chin. His KO loss to Bradley was caused by body shots and Pac threw practically 0 of those on Rios).

Also, was he only on roids for Hatton? He landed plenty of punches on his other opponents during his career's height [2008-2012] and didn't put any of them cleanly away (ODLH corner stoppage, Cotto ref stoppage, Margarito went 12, Clottey went 12, Mosley went 12, Bradley went 12).

The Hatton KO is an anomaly in the bigger picture. Practically all his other knockouts were caused by an accumulation of punishment + well put together combos. Harder to get those kinds of knockouts if you are throwing fewer punches overall and aren't throwing combinations (look at the punch stats for his last few fights + how many combos did you notice him throw at Vargas?).

[Robbie Barrett]

Pacquiao will always be looked upon as a drug cheat. That's what happens when you turn down the biggest fight in history over testing without a good reason.