Boxing’s only eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao retains his WBA title with a UD win over fourth-place president Adrien Broner during the Showtime PPV main event in Las Vegas on January 19, 2019.
Returning to the US after a year of absence at the age of 40, Manny Pacquiao could not escape doubts about his performance against rival Adrien Boner – the American boxer who is Floyd Mayweather’s “brother” who owns a similar fighting style. , who stopped Pacquiao in 2015.
However, the Filipino boxing legend has shown that a new level is forever, and a “bad version of Mayweather” like Broner can never be compared with his amazing pressing ability. After 12 rounds with almost complete control of the game, Manny Pacquiao brought a convincing consensus victory.
Fight details
Pacquiao successfully defended his WBA (Regular) title against Broner via unanimous decision and never seemed to get stuck throughout the bout. In the seventh round, Pacquiao trapped Broner on the rope and unleashed a series of punches that forced Broner to tie him up. Pacquiao then resumed his onslaught after the break, but Broner survived the inning. In the ninth round, Pacquiao caught Broner with his huge left hand, sending Broner back. All three judges ruled in favor of Pacquiao 117–111, 116–112, 116–112. According to CompuBox, Pacquiao landed 82 of his 197 power punches (42%) compared to 39 of Broner’s 180 power punches (22%). Total punch stats are 112 out of 568 (20%) for Pacquiao and 50 out of 295 (17%) for Broner. This marks Broner’s career low with a total of 50 landing punches, his previous low of 90 against Jessie Vargas.
In his post-fight interview, Jim Gray asked Pacquiao if his rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr. happened or not and Pacquiao replied, “Tell him to get back in the ring, and we’ll fight.” Mayweather, who was in the ring, was asked by Gray to nod to the camera if he wanted to fight Pacquiao again but did not give an answer. Meanwhile, Broner’s interview immediately goes south as he declares victory and says, “I’ve got the fight under control. He’s gone missing. I’ve beaten him clean more times. I beat him.” He alleged that it was a staging of a Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch and accused Gray of turning against him. When Gray commented that Broner had three wins, three losses and a draw in his last seven games, Broner told Gray, “I’m 3–3–1 in the last seven but I’ll lost to me 7–0”, to which Gray replied, “It doesn’t make much sense, that’s the end of this interview.”
