Manny Pacquiao vs Jessie Vargas Post Fight

It is usually billed as challenger vs champion, this fight may as well have been the challenger being the champion and the champion just happy to share the ring with the legendary champion. Whilst I would have rathered not see Manny back in the ring against Vargas, not the opponent but father time catches up with everyone... it was still good to be able to say I was tuning into a pacquiao fight. At 37, the legendary fighter had nothing to prove apart from whether he stlll has something to offer the welterweight division, which on looking at the fight he does. However if you take a closer look at this fight you had an opponent that was tailor made for Manny. One who wasn't a noted puncher yet still managed to connect and rock Emmanuel Pacquaio on a number of occassions and a champion in vargas whose feet were cemented to the canvas which meant there would always be a home for Manny's favoured straight left hand. This also meant there was little chance of Manny getting countered. Despite the win, it was clear to see Manny is no where near the fighter he once was and anybody who tells you different is doing the once again WBO welterweight champion a huge disservice. Yes, he still puts punches together, the workrate is no where near the amount of punches he landed against guys like cotto and delahoya. Yes, he's 37 and this needs to be considered, father time catches up with us all and the amount of times pacquaio was caught is alarming because in both the bradley fight and now the vargas fight he was shaken up by non punchers. One has got to be thinking imagine he got nailed by noted punchers such as Keith Thurman and Errol Spence both who know how to render a fighter without their senses as practioners in the art of boxing and neither of them I suspect will be looking across the ring like vargas was in awe of his idol, Pacquiao. There was a lack of urgency from the corner of Vargas as well. His trainer while giving good instructions lacked the ability to stir the sort of fire in vargas to make him bite down on the gumshield to go out and take the fight to manny and become a household name, instead being happy to see his fighter go the distance and not get knocked out in the process. Vargas says after the fight that he wasn't hurt then if that's the case champ why didn't you push forward to try and become a legend, become the man to end the career of Manny... maybe that would have upset uncle Bob's plans to further squeeze out future big fights for MP. Maybe they knew behind closed doors that this fight was a forgone conclusion and they trained and knew they couldnt retain the title? who knows? one thing is for sure Manny is once again WBO welterweight champion. By Ingram Jones.