By Jeremy Harness

 

Manny Paquiao was on the verge of retirement, having lost his last two fights and being knocked cold in his mosr recent fight.

 

That seemed like ancient history Saturday night, as he bludgeoned Brandon Rios for 12 rounds and brought back memories of the old Pac-Man, with the hand speed that brought him to this level proving to leave Rios in the dust.

 

The judges also saw this. The three scoring the fight had it 120-108, 119-109 and 118-110, all for the Filipino superstar.

 

In his porevious fight, Pacquiao was knocked unconscious by Juan Manuel Marquez in the sixth round, which seemed to kiss the potential megafight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. goodbye. With this victory over Rios in this convincing a fashion, this could reinvigorate the talks of that match possibly happening.

 

Pacquiao’s record is now 55-5-2, and that is said to have set up a fight on April 12 in Las Vegas, either against Ruslan Provodnikov or a rematch against Timothy Bradlley, against whom Pacquiao dropped a highly-disputed decision in 2011