ON top of fighting a much bigger and younger foe, Manny Pacquiao will be battling tall odds when he challenges defending American champion Mario Barrios for the World Boxing Council welterweight title on July 19 (July 20 in Manila) at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas.
Most bookmakers have made Pacquiao, 46, a 3-1 underdog, with the betting ring site box.live giving him a 27.53 percent chance of wresting the championship belt from Barrios, 30, in his comeback fight after a four-year layoff.
With a record of 29 wins, two losses, and one draw, Barrios, who stands six feet flat, also enjoys a six-inch height edge over the Pinoy boxing star, plus a significant 10-centimeter reach advantage – or nearly four inches – that he could use to keep his celebrated opponent at bay.
Sporting a record of 62 wins (39 KOs), eight losses and two draws, Pacman obviously has the better experience and the website said “stats suggest Pacquiao has a slight advantage in power over Barrios, with a 63 percent knockout percentage compared to Barrios’ 62 percent.”
In their latest press conference in Los Angeles last Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila), the returning Filipino fighter said he missed being out of the pro boxing spotlight, with all the glamour and hoopla that comes with appearing in a title fight.
“I returned because I miss boxing,” Pacquiao told the emcee of the press briefing attended also by Barrios in an article written by veteran boxing scribe Jake Donovan on the boxingscene.com website.
“Especially this situation, being interviewed, press conferences, the training camp, everything like that. I miss that,” he acknowledged.
“I rested my body for four years. I’ve been in boxing for 30 years, so it was good to rest my body. Now I’m back, I’m excited to give the fans a good fight,” he added.
The report noted that the fight date “fittingly, comes six years – almost to the day – and at the same venue from where Pacquiao registered his last win to an already historic career.
“A July (20) 2019 split decision win over then-unbeaten Keith Thurman at MGM Grand saw a then 40-year-old Pacquiao claim the World Boxing Association super welterweight title.”
Set to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame this weekend in Canastota, New York, he could “become by far the oldest welterweight to win a title but the only elected Hall of Fame to do so.
“No fighter who was either already in the Hall (see Alexis Arguello) or elected and awaiting enshrinement (Sugar Ray Leonard) enjoyed anything close to a successful comeback.”
But the challenger admitted that fighting the reigning champ was no cakewalk, saying: “I know that Barrios trains hard, he has to defend his belt and I am his challenger.
“I have to go the extra mile to punish myself in order to win his fight.”
