This is actually a pretty interesting Face Off, as Manny Pacquiao and Brandon Rios sit down with HBO's Max Kellerman to discuss their November 23 pay-per-view main event in Macao.
Pacquiao, as usual, has a hard time doing the whole tough guy shtick that this format best showcases. Manny's soft-spoken as usual, but there's just a twinge of arrogance to him, too. "He wants to be like me," Pacquiao says, almost dismissively toward Rios. "He wants to do what I've done in boxing."
Rios does his normal stuff, getting a little agitated here and there; agitated by Kellerman's questions, particularly when Max presses him on his being out-boxed by Mike Alvarado and Richar Abril, and also by Pacquiao not taking this all that seriously. The fight is something I'm sure Manny is ready for, but Pacquiao just isn't made for the Face Off set with the manufactured intensity and nervousness. He's just too happy a human being. He's one of Tony Soprano's "happy wanderers."
"I've got to retire you. I've got to retire Manny Pacquiao," Rios says, "because I'm the next star."
Brandon Rios is talking the game, but if we were scoring Face Off, I go 10-9 Pacquiao -- though I'm a little uneasy by just how easy he seems to think this might be. There could be trouble once the real bell sounds.