Last Sunday, my mind stuck. Fingers jammed… There was no mood to write...
The war designed to finish the unfinished ended with more questions than answers. The first Unfinished Business was a controversial draw, and this fight may just turn out to be as controversial.
I was
unhappy, disappointed, albeit
relieved…
Unhappy - because Marquez won!
Disappointed - because Pacquiao lost!
Relieved – because Michael Buffer roared…
“The winner by split decision… the NEW… WBC Super Featherweight Champion of the World: Manny, the Pacman Pacquiao!”My cohorts and I screamed in glorious chorus but oddly for a short moment only. Then a restrained jubilation followed…
Yes! Pacquiao grabbed the WBC and the Ring Magazine titles. That’s official – now etched in the milestones of history, forever and ever. Judge Jerry Roth scored the match 115-112 for Marquez, while Duane Ford scored it 115-112 for Pacquiao. Breaking the draw was Tom Miller, with 114-113 for the Pacman.
As a Filipino, I joined with the bulging of the national pride. With me in the same fervor were
Pareng Ricky, the big boss of SMC Mandaue Brewery,
Big Bro Noel, the plant top honcho of East Asia Utilities,
Brother Ely, PEPSCOR’s president,
Jun El Terrible, the Fil-Mexican of APO Cement,
Cesar the Czar, the Pinoy-Japanese Mestizo of Taiheyo Cement and
Roland, ‘The Tunnel That Never Was’ – all electrical engineers witnessing PPV on wide screen. We were all part ingredient of a nation that was enchanted of Pacquiao’s victory!
WHO ACTUALLY WON THE FIGHT?
Ironically, never has the nation been so divided. Never mind the bad politics in the meantime – this time, I mean the euphoria of the aftermath of that classic battle. In retrospect, none of the press pre-fight recipes hyped for a knock-out triumph turned out to be adjacent to reality, but a split decision that would continue to generate verbal arguments in the days and weeks to come. Except for the third round, the fight was non climactic – there was a lone knockdown but no knock-out, the excitement thus short of reaching the highest gear of expectations. But alas in its stead, the ensuing restlessness, the apprehensions and the anxieties when Marquez beyond belief nailing series of explosions to the fright not on Pacquaio himself but to the multitudes of Filipinos glued to the TV screens.
Even in the web’s
Paclandia where talking opposite to
pacmanism is mortal sin, thoughts are at odds – and the consensus seems to drift to the question,
“who really won the fight”?Forgive me before one soul hisses in disagreement, but I am not convinced on whether the Pacman had really done inarguably enough to lord it over & above his crafty Mexican rival.
To be honest, my own score card shows a 115 – 112 for Marquez, this despite Marquez’s third round knockdown. In my book, the 10-8 score for Pacman in the third just evened up the score at 28-28 after the third canto. Back to square one, in other words, the battle had just begun in Round 4.
In the end, my notes bared three points for the Dinamita over the Pacman.
Where did I err? But
Yahoo had it with the same verdict.
ESPN’s Dan Rafael & Darius Ortiz had Marquez won, along with other respected scribes in the international press.
Tony Aldeguer, the country’s top boxing sage gave it to Marquez. Even the Filipino commentators covering the actual fight in Las Vegas had split opinions on who won! Yes, the boxing bible Ring Magazine awarded its belt to Pacquaio, lest declared Marquez to have won the fight.
Of course several other notable boxing analysts had it for Pacquiao, foreign sports journalists included. Manny as ever was awesome, strong and determined. I urged myself to watch again the fight and re-score it objectively as possible. But then it’s water under the bridge.
The Pacman won, and
that’s what matters most.
TRAINING & PHYSICAL CONDITIONINGAs I said in the previous article, to beat the Pacman, Marquez must be in super-explosive physical condition. Last Sunday he defied nature by showcasing an incredible stamina no other human with 34 birthdays can accomplish. From round one up to the end, he fought like a sleek stinging cobra in defense while instantaneously transforming himself as a lion attacking a buffalo in offense. Yes, his perfect counter-punching appeared again – this time crispier, stronger and faster. And they didn’t come in one but three or four explosions in utter consistency.
His worth-awing resilience and durability derived from literally non-stop training and discipline brought him controlling the fight.
“If you rest, you rust”. I should have heard it from Juan Manuel. That could have been the secret why the infinitesimal compared to Pacquiao’s semi-wholesale reduction rate in weight.
Marquez was down in the third, in a round that should have been his. But typical to this warrior, he came back strong, more poised and more potent. He was cut by an accidental clash of heads in the seventh. But while taking all that Pacquiao can give, Marquez dished out enough to stun the Pacman, whose head snapped and whose legs wobbled in the eighth.
Pacquaio then had his share of a cut in the eighth, but by a legitimate blow.
What a fight, that was!
WORK-RATE & EFFICIENCYAnother yardstick mentioned in my previous blog was the so-called
“work-rate”. To recall, I said,
“Juan Manuel has to be super-active in the first round and his trainer Nacho must have done his homework. In order to be effectively active, it means a work rate high enough from the very first round till the end.”True enough, the stats released by compuboxonline.com showed that Marquez landed and connected more blows than Pacquiao during their vicious 36-minute brawl.
Although Marquez threw less number of punches as Pacquiao (511-619), but Marquez performed the better throughput, connecting 172 times for 34 percent. On the other hand, Pacquiao landed 157 punches for 25 percent. In the jab department, Pacquiao had a total of 314 jabs and connected 43 times. Marquez threw his left jab only 201 times but found the target 42 times.
In the power-punches department, Marquez was also ahead, throwing 310, 130 of which landed as compared to Pacquiao’s only 114 out of 305.
What does it mean? Accomplishing close to Pacquiao’s legendary work rate is marvelous. But Marquez’s work-rate was not only superb but came with uncanny accuracy and efficiency. We expected him to run, but he didn’t! We wished him to back-pedal but instead fiercely mixing it up with sweeping left hooks.
PACMAN’S MOMENTSManny Pacquiao admitted it was the hardest bout he ever fought.
“I became too over-confident,” Pacquiao was quoted saying so.
“I felt I could handle his punches but I became too confident,” he added.
In fact, Pacquiao didn’t appear to be able to comprehend the Mexican’s fight strategies as he seemed to have never solved Marquez accurate counters. With Marquez as opponent, he didn’t quite get his target range right –
that’s Juan’s Nacho Beristain’ homework is all about. With Marquez’s five-inch reach advantage, Pacman often got tagged with irritating jabs when trying to initiate contact.
Nonetheless, what was revealing to watch in the fight was the excitement when Pacquiao fought like an injured tiger. When he jabbed & boxed as in the earlier stages of the fight, he was losing the rounds. When fighting like an injured tiger as he reverts back to himself, yes, although not very methodical, not very efficient, but he is winning the rounds. As we saw, Pacquiao withstood the furious assaults to the head and body in the middle rounds then came to life in the late going to eke out a split decision.
To be honest, when Pacquiao elected to box, we saw him as
‘lethargic’ and not doing his job. As my
Pareng Ricky quipped,
“Now very rich, Pacquiao seemed to be preserving his assets. He is now more of a businessman than a boxer,” …a liner worthy of contemplating, indeed. And we, all in the group agreed.
In fairness to the Pacman, the
‘pallid’ performance while playing boxer-counter puncher in some rounds may not be totally correct. As many had observed, Pacman himself was the one who established a high standard of excitement – that’s what supposedly the Pacman should be! Deviating from this self-imposed performance standard may have been perceived as mediocre but may actually be the call of the situation. Probably, we were unreasonably salivating for more blood; probably we were wanting for the unreachable given the compulsion of the time.
Remember that Marquez was not just an ordinary mortal in that fight. The toughest hombre Manny had ever fought was in his best to deliver a finely rehearsed counter-offfensive trap, given the opportunity. After two rounds, Manny must have felt it and a reckless swarming over his opponent may only bring him to the lion's den.
On the other hand, as the dust cleared, Pacquiao could not also be denied of victory as he landed probably the more telling blows in the entirety of the fight. To recall, he staggered and almost knocked down Marquez again in the 10th round. Recovering from two big scary moments, one in the second chapter when Marquez hurt him with combos and those drilling body shots & head-zapping straights in the eighth and ninth, Pacquiao came back with his own bombs following those rounds.
In adversity, we saw that Pacman after all knew how to rise to the situation. Summarily, Pacquaio reverting back to his old self had turned the tide of the fight. But then, his eventual triumph is still arguable.
