Manny Pacquiao ended the knockout drought tonight on ESPN+. Lucas Matthysse was no match for the aging icon at any point in the one sided fight.
The first round was all Manny Pacquiao (60-7-2, 39 KOs). He ripped Lucas Matthysse (39-5, 26 KOs) upstairs and down and I didn’t like how Matthysse was reacting. The Argentinian was determined to box on the outside against the Filipino icon, but it wasn’t working. He looked like he was having a difficult time letting his hands go while Manny could touch him with basically anything. And touch him Manny did in the third round. A combination punctuated by a left uppercut put Matthysse on the seat of his pants. He wasn’t badly hurt and finished the round, but scoring was quickly becoming an issue for him.
The fourth round was the best of the fight for Lucas Matthysse thus far, but he didn’t win it. Late left hands for Manny Pacquiao saw to that. Lucas did get his right hand going though. The fifth was back to being all Manny Pacquiao. He mostly bullied an increasingly inactive Matthysse on his guard while Lucas offered nothing of note in return. Strangely, a glancing right hook that really didn’t look like much at all even caused him to take a knee right before the bell. The sixth round did nothing to change the direction of the fight.
The finish came in the seventh. After spending a couple minutes peppering Matthysse with straight lefts, Pacquiao unleashed basically the same left uppercut he used to drop Matthysse in the third round to the same effect. This time it was the end though. On a knee, Matthysse spit out his mouthpiece while referee Kenny Bayless was counting and it was accepted as a forfeit. Manny Pacquiao has scored his first knockout since 2009.
I know the narrative here will be that Manny is back, but I never really thought he left. He has remained a top ten, if not top five welterweight the entire time. To me the story here was how poor Lucas Matthysse looked yet again. I do believe the Argentinian power puncher is likely done at world level.
