LAS VEGAS – After a frustrated but triumphant Juan Manuel Marquez addressed a large crowd in the MGM Grand media center Saturday, a chastened Freddie Roach came to the dais without Manny Pacquiao. The many-times Trainer of the Year said he needed to do his job better and that Marquez – and Floyd Mayweather – would always pose trouble for his charge. A while later, Pacquiao showed up with a white bandage over his right eye.
Promoter Bob Arum introduced Pacquiao and then, citing the late hour, of all things, declared there was time for only two questions – about a tenth of what Marquez had fielded. There were no ballads to be sung, no postfight Pacquiao concert to announce. Instead, Pacquiao gave a meandering answer about the difficulty of meeting high expectations, one that ended with these words:
“The fight is not that happy.”
Well said. In the third, and least, match of the trilogy they concluded Saturday, Pacquiao and Marquez did not have the frantic exchanges that made their first two fights so rich. Instead, they made a match that demonstrated Marquez’s superiority of class and Pacquiao’s superiority of energy. It was a suspenseful but undramatic spectacle Marquez won, whatever the judges said about it.
Majority-decision, Pacquiao: 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112. That was the official verdict.
My ringside scorecard disagreed: 117-113, Marquez. I had rounds 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 for Marquez. Rounds 3, 4 and 6 went to Pacquiao. I had rounds 1 and 12 even. Frankly, I had Marquez undressing Pacquiao in the second half of the fight. I also marked four rounds – the third, fourth, sixth and seventh – close enough to be even. Make of that what you will.
The way scorekeeper Glenn Trowbridge arrived at his 116-112 tally deserves a spot of consideration. Trowbridge had Pacquiao sweeping rounds 8, 9, 10 and 11. Then he saw Marquez win the 12th. What Trowbridge saw Marquez do in the fight’s final three minutes that Marquez did not do in the 12 that preceded them is anyone’s guess.
Here’s mine: Trowbridge goofed. That 12th round scored for Marquez is a resounding oops – a way of compensating for an 8-3 tally in a close fight. There’s likely nothing nefarious here; a ringside scorekeeper simply got overtaken by the moment and judged badly. Life goes on.
Marquez said about as much after the fight. He said he was not sure he would bother continuing to be a prizefighter. He said he knew he’d done enough to win, and that was that.
Contrary opinions will cite Marquez’s inactivity in the championship rounds. They will say Marquez was outworked. They will say CompuBox Punchstats – mentioned uncharacteristically by Arum from the dais, during a postfight stalling routine afforded more time than even Arum could fill – showed Pacquiao landing 17 more power punches than Marquez. Valid points, all.
But so is this: In 36 minutes Pacquiao did not land one leaping left cross, a signature punch thrown from his southpaw stance, while Marquez landed numerous left-uppercut/right-cross combos. Had someone told you on Saturday morning that would happen, and neither man would score a knockdown, what result would you have predicted? Exactly.
Marquez feinted forward when Pacquiao got set to leap. Marquez backed to a spot just out of range once Pacquiao got resettled and launched himself, then Marquez picked up Pacquiao’s left hand and ducked down and to the right, casting Pacquiao over his lead shoulder again and again.
It was an indictment of two myths that accrued to the Pacquiao legend in what seven matches happened after the last time Marquez outboxed him: Pacquiao’s right hand is dangerous as his left, and Pacquiao’s footwork is vastly improved.
Marquez exposed both of these as embellishments. He also exposed Pacquiao’s victories over men like David Diaz, Oscar De La Hoya and Antonio Margarito as somewhat farcical. Anyone can land a right hook on Diaz, in other words; anyone can look balletic across from a spent De La Hoya or a clumsy Margarito.
Watch the ninth round of Saturday’s match for proof. At one point, Pacquiao swims at Marquez, his feet a jumbled and crossed-over mess of thwarted aggression. Marquez, entirely unconcerned by Pacquiao’s right hand, ducks Pacquiao’s left cross and ends up five feet away from Pacquiao by taking barely three steps. It was a genuinely humbling moment for Freddie Roach, author of the ever-improving-Pacquiao narrative.
Writing of humbled entities, this city is enjoying a small economic bounce from its depressed bottom. Wherever you are, someone is talking about the improved taxi traffic last month brought. The Strip now has a vibrancy it had lost entirely by the summer of 2010. Whether this is the first sign of a genuine rebound or merely what speculators call a “dead-cat bounce” is something only time can tell.
What time might as well not tell is the winner of a fantasy match between Pacquiao and Mayweather. Saturday rendered most of that debate academic. Were they the same size, Mayweather would outbox Pacquiao more easily than Marquez did. And they are not nearly the same size.
At ringside Saturday, after Pacquiao-Marquez III, a number of respected journalists said Mayweather was the night’s biggest winner. He had, after all, just seen the little guy he dominated in 2009 box his way to nothing worse than a controversial majority-decision loss to Pacquiao. Bob Arum later caught this vibe and lectured us witling writers about styles making fights; it was the opening salvo in what would become an onslaught of “Pacquiao-Marquez tells you nothing about Pacquiao-Mayweather!” hucksterism, if The Fight to Save Boxing ever got made.
Not likely. The Pacquiao-Mayweather grape has now gone from ripe in November 2009, to overripe in November 2010, to fallen-from-the-vine in November 2011.
And a vintage Juan Manuel Marquez is to blame.
Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com
Photo by Chris Farina / Top Rank
