Boxing's other superstar Manny Pacquiao has settled on his next opponent. Pacquiao will return to action against Brandon Rios on November 23 in Macau, off the coast of China in an HBO pay-per-view (PPV). Pacquiao is coming off two straight losses, a thoroughly bogus decision loss to Timothy Bradley in June and a devastating KO loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in December.
Marquez wasn't interested in a rematch so Pacquiao will instead face Brandon Rios who's coming off a unanimous decision loss to Mike Alvarado in March.
Kevin Iole first reported the news for Yahoo! Sports.
Scott Christ of Bad Left Hook has some thoughts on the bout:
It will sell more than enough to be profitable most likely, but will it sell enough that it doesn't wind up considered a flop? The last time Pacquiao had a "low" PPV figure was in 2009, when he sold "only" 700,000 pay-per-views against Joshua Clottey. Could this fight get back toward that number, rather than the automatic 1 million-plus we've come to expect?
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(Pacquiao's advisor Michael) Koncz says that Rios has been chosen due to the style matchup, in short saying that Rios is likely to be easier for Pacquiao than Alvarado would have been.
The fact that Rios went on camera mocking the Parkinson's disease of Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach also makes this an appealing opponent to the Pacquiao camp.