Pacquiao scores unanimous decision win over Broner
Well that went as expected. In his first fight on U.S. soil since 2016, and his first fight as a 40-year-old, Manny Pacquiao cruised to a unanimous decision victory over Adrien Broner at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to retain his secondary WBA welterweight title. Using aggression and quickness, Pacquiao outclassed the reticent Broner, who sat back in an attempt to counter, but threw hardly any punches, and landed even fewer.
In the ring after the bout, Pacquiao said he was willing to fight Floyd Mayweather, who was sitting ringside for the fight, and chatted with Pacquiao in his locker room before the bout. “Tell him to come back to the ring, and we will fight,” Pacquiao said. “I’m willing to fight again to Floyd Mayweather if he’s willing to come back in boxing.” Mayweather, however, declined to respond.
In the early rounds, Pacquiao came out firing, charging at Broner again and again with jabs and flurries to the body. Pacquiao snapped out over 70 jabs in the first three rounds, cruising to easy wins as he avoided Broner’s rare attempts at counters. The man from Cincinnati they call “The Problem” bounced back in the fourth round, landing his best shots of the fight on the counter, but he just couldn’t land consistently.
Pacquiao surged in the middle rounds, landing a big left to the body in the fifth round, then taking over in the seventh. He rocked Broner on multiple occasions, and had him in trouble against the ropes, but wasn’t able to get him out of there. Then in the ninth, Pacquiao found success again with his left hand, crushing Broner with a stiff shot right to his face.
From there, he cruised through the final few rounds, as Broner got on his bike. Perhaps he was just too hurt from the constant punishment Pacquiao was dealing out, or maybe he truly believed he won the bout. He certainly said as much in the ring afterwards.
“I beat him,” Broner proclaimed to loud jeers from the crowd. “Everybody out there know I beat him. I controlled the fight. He was missing. I hit him more times. I beat him.” Broner did not, in fact, hit Pacquiao more times; the Filipino champion outlanded him 112-50.
Outclassed in the fight, Broner ate one more sharp jab to end his frustrating night. This time, though, it came from Jim Gray. “I’m 3-3-1 in my last seven, but I’d be 7-0 against you,” Broner snapped.