WBOnews.com

By Maloney L. Samaco –Manny Pacquiao won two times the past year 2016, the first one on a trilogy and the second one coming out of brief retirement. Those two impressive wins make the fighting senator a candidate for the Fighter of the Year honors.

Ranked No. 7 pound-for-pound by The Ring, Pacquiao knocked No. 9 P4P Bradley down twice in Rounds 7 and 9 and outpointed him in practically the twelve rounds of the fight.

Pacquiao landed 28% (122 of 439) punches thrown, and 46% of power punches (92 of 201) compared to Bradley’s 33% (99 of 302) punches landed and 40% (87 of 218) of power punches thrown according to CompuBox.

Pacquiao won the WBO international welterweight title fight by unanimous decision with a score of 116-110 from all three judges.

In his comeback fight, Pacquiao defeated Jessie Vargas by 114-113, 118-109, 118-109 unanimous decision becoming the new WBO welterweight champion. The 37-year-old aging warrior knocked the 27-year-old champion down in the second round with a sharp counter punch and dominated the American all night.

Pacquiao landed 36% (147 of 408) punches thrown, and 48% of power punches (101 of 212) compared to Vargas’ 19% (104 of 561) punches landed and 23% (70 of 305) of power punches thrown according to CompuBox.

In its Fighter of the Year ranking, CompuBox placed Pacqiuao 5th behind its 1st placer Terence Crawford with 49 points, 2nd placer Vasyl Lomachenko with 44, 3rd placer Andre Ward with 39, and 4th placer Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez with 31. Pacquiao got 27 points ahead of 6th placer Carl Frampton with 20.

Point Totals were based on each listed six fighter’s 2016 fights with 6 pts. awarded for the leader in each of the 10 listed categories, 5 pts. for No. 2, 4 pts. for No. 3, 3 pts. for No. 4, 2 pts. for No. 5 and 1 pt. for No. 6.

The categories are Total Landed/Round, Total Thrown/Round, Total Connected %, Jabs Landed/Round, Power Landed/Round, Power Connected %, Opponents’ Total Connected %, Opponents’ Power Connected % and Opponents’ Total Landed/Round.

Pacquiao placed No. 2 in the Power Connected % category.

Even if he is a darkhorse for the FOTY, Pacquiao still showed the world that he is still one of the top fighters of the world in 2016.

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