Outrageous scoring robs Juan Manuel M�rquez of world title and proves it never pays to bet against the house favourite
Only a charlatan, a politician or a boxing promoter could tell the world that congressman Manny Pacquiao deserved to get enough votes for a majority decision over Juan Manuel M�rquez. The fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Saturday night was billed as a trilogy for the ages but it ended in a scandal as controversial as a backwoods election.
Yet the anger will last only as long as it takes to persuade them to do it again. And that will not be long at all. They will fight for a fourth time, almost certainly in the same place, the MGM Grand Arena, on 5 May next year, and there will be an audience of millions prepared to vindicate Bob Arum's postfight declaration: "If we do it again, it's going to break all monetary records for pay-per-view."
Those observers who believed this third meeting was merely a prelude to Pacquiao finally fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr on that bonanza Mexican Independence Day weekend in the gambling capital of the world might have to wonder some more. Mayweather will have watched the deterioration in the Filipino's ringcraft with mixed emotions: justifiably more confident than ever that he has Pacquiao's measure but aware that Pacquiao-M�rquez IV will be easier for Uncle Bob to arrange.
If there is such a thing in the fight game as justice it is sustained not by humanitarianism but greed. Maybe the pot will be smaller but the promoter still harbours enough animosity towards the difficult Mayweather to cut off his nose to spite his purse. Mayweather can wait and that will make Arum happy. The complication is Pacquiao might lose to M�rquez next time, although chutzpah is a bottomless glass in Las Vegas.
The night should have belonged to M�rquez but we were reminded beforehand of boxing's propensity for cruel verdicts. Moments before they engaged, Mike Tyson tolled 10 bells for the late Joe Frazier. Who was to know that less than an hour later boxing would have another suffering underdog to acclaim? If Frazier went to his grave believing he had bested Muhammad Ali in two of their three wars, so M�rquez will be convinced until the day he dies ? along with most of the 16,000 customers who booed and whistled the highlights reel ? that he should be the WBA's welterweight champion. Yet, from the detritus of shame that left a familiar stench in this rough-and-tumble town, an ignoble verity of the fight game prevailed: do not bet against the house favourite.
Robert Hoyle called it 114-114, and there were enough close rounds to give the judge the benefit of the doubt; Dave Moretti is more culpable for making Pacquiao a 115?113 winner; and Glenn Trowbridge ought to hand in his badge and ride quietly out of town, preferably not in the direction of Mexico, for his brazen assertion that the champion won 116?112. That is not just wrong, it is a score from Mars.
From this couch, even through the anaesthetic of television, M�rquez won 117-114. Pacquiao might have split a quiet first, and maybe the sixth. But, such was M�rquez's mastery of distance and timing that the boxing writers' darling only imposed himself with any certainty in rounds eight, nine and 10.
The fight engrossed rather than thrilled. Purists will have delighted in M�rquez's lovely feints and the way he glided in an out of range to tease Pacquiao into mistakes. Pacquiao can rarely have missed so many times. Certainly in the 24 rounds they had boxed before this fight, he was a buzzsaw; now, refined and more conventional, he could not match his opponent's more orthodox skills, his hurtful counters. For that alone, he deserved to lose. The bruises around his face and the cut above his right eye told him that.
So did Freddie Roach (during the combat, at least). "You're falling behind," the trainer told him between the seventh and eighth rounds. I had him five points down then, with five left.
Pacquiao needed a knockout in the last and he lost the round. But he did not lose the fight because boxing did not want him to. He was more desperate than earlier but no nearer to finding a rhythm. His wildness was embarrassing for such a high-calibre operator, a great champion who might soon have to confront some tough truths.
"I've never seen him fall short with punches like this," his friend, sparring partner and fan, Amir Khan, said. "Manny can do better than this." Khan thought M�rquez won. Pacquiao is an honourable man. They are all honourable men. But someone slipped a knife through Juan Manuel M�rquez's toga on Saturday night, and he was not wearing gloves.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/nov/13/pacquiao-marquez-world-title
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