Four years ago, Manny Pacquiao was denied a win over Juan Manuel Marquez when Judge Burt Clements turned in an erroneous scorecard that resulted in the fight being declared a draw.
Despite knocking Marquez down three times in the opening round, Pacquiao was given a 10-7 on Clements’ card rather than the 10-6 round he was supposed to receive. That single point made the difference between a thrilling split decision victory and an unfulfilling draw, leaving both fans as well as the fighters themselves in need of a rematch to settle the score.
Saturday night, that rematch materialized, and when the second great fight came to an end, Pacquiao found redemption in defeating Marquez for the Junior Lightweight Championship by split decision, winning on the deciding scorecard by a single point.
In 2004, Pacquiao took then WBA and IBF featherweight titlist Marquez by storm, sending the Mexican champion to the canvas not once but three times in the very first round. Marquez, however, refused to go away and miraculously fought his way back into the fight, winning rounds with superior combination punching. Many fans and one of the three judges even felt Marquez had done well enough to win in spite of the huge deficit he faced two or three rounds into the bout. The knockdowns Pacquiao scored ultimately prevented the Filipino sensation from tasting defeat that night. In the rematch, Pacquiao bailed himself out, once more, by scoring a critical knockdown.
With the memory of the first round of the first meeting lingering in the back of his mind, the WBC Champion wisely kept his distance from Pacquiao, who was generally considered the champion in the division going into the bout but lacked the refuge of a title belt. After trading from a distance, Marquez drilled Pacquiao with a straight right hand. Seeing his chance to fight, Pacquiao responded with authority, hitting Marquez with his straight left and banging home a left-right combination. With the champion hanging back and waiting for opportunities to counter punch, Pacquiao stepped up his attack in the second round, buckling Marquez’ legs with a straight left. Unmistakably losing the round, Marquez came up big in the final seconds, lashing Pacquiao with a left-right and a winging left hook to the jaw that rattled Pacquiao’s head and wobbled the challenger momentarily.
Marquez similarly stunned Pacquiao in the third round with a straight right, forcing the challenger to slow his pace and rethink the situation. A clash of heads opened the doors to more action, and Pacquiao struck first with his straight left, but Marquez opted to stand in the pocket and foolishly threw a wide left hook before eating a hellacious left hand across the jaw. The impact was immediate as Marquez crashed flat on his back on the canvas yet astonishingly collected himself and answered Referee Kenny Bayless’ count with ten seconds remaining in the round. Pacquiao honed in for the kill, bombing Marquez with a hard one-two to the mouth against the ropes. A subsequent right hook sent the champion staggering along the ropes, which he grabbed with a glove to keep from hitting the mat once more. Unfortunately for Pacquiao, Bayless missed what should have been an obvious second knockdown. Fortunately for Marquez, the bell prevented Pacquiao from finishing him on the spot. So discombobulated was the champion, in fact, that he followed Pacquiao all the way to his opponent’s corner before collecting his whereabouts and walking back to his own.
The effect of the shots absorbed in the third still affected Marquez in round four, which Pacquiao won with pure aggression by following Marquez around the ring and landing sweeping hooks and jarring left hands. Pacquiao even found a moment to mock the champion by grinning after blocking a combination with his gloves and, later, weaving side to side upon ducking out of the way of another Marquez rally. Realizing he was in trouble of letting the fight slip away, Marquez decided to stand his ground and punch in the fifth, planting his feet and unleashing a solid five-punch combination to bust through Pacquiao’s guard. Finding success when he let his hands go, Marquez went after Pacquiao just before the bell to firmly assert himself, which he continued to do in round six, landing the bigger, more meaningful punches in the exchanges.
Pacquiao appeared to be taking the seventh round off until another clash of heads resulted in the opening of a cut over Marquez’ right eye. The challenger then began to utilize his right hand to catch Marquez with hooks and jabs that set up combinations, including some heavy left hands, while the champion swung wildly, seldom hitting more than glove. Still, Marquez wasn’t the only one who returned to his corner bleeding as Pacquiao also suffered a cut over the right eye, an opening which the astute Marquez targeted, landing a crisp straight right to Pacquiao’s eye right off the bat in round eight. Pacquiao squinted and wobbled a bit from the shot before being forced to cover up. Visibly bothered by the cut, Pacquiao could do little else but try to avoid the blows Marquez landed on him against the ropes. A hard one-two snapped Pacquiao’s head up and sealed a dominant round for the champion.
Round nine was competitively fought, but Pacquiao landed the bigger bombs to the head of Marquez, who was becoming easier to hit as the fight progressed and had to be examined by a ringside doctor before the end of the round after receiving another cut over the eye from a Pacquiao left hand. Fifteen seconds into the tenth round, Marquez walked into a huge left from Pacquiao that buckled the champion’s knees and sent him on the retreat to the ropes where Pacquiao hammered him with big shots from both hands. Marquez managed to fight back to the center of the ring, but Pacquiao continued to rip him with a two-fisted attack wherever they went and won a key round in style.
Knowing full well he needed to win the last two rounds convincingly, and probably score a knockdown somewhere along the way, in order to keep his title, Marquez stepped on the gas in the eleventh round, taking the fight to Pacquiao until a low blow to the challenger briefly halted the action. Some of the more thudding blows of the fight ensued as both men made stands, Marquez connecting with his straight right but Pacquiao surging to land hard shots all the way to the bell. Neither man could be confident of victory going into the twelfth round, though with the knockdown against him, Marquez surely needed it more. He indeed fought that way, pushing the fight until getting clocked by a Pacquiao rally midway through. Trading punches until the final bell, both fighters, blood spattered on their faces, raised their gloves in triumph, though neither was fooling anybody by feigning coolness.
Marquez and Pacquiao had fought on even terms through twelve rounds, and the scorecards reflected it. Saved from another draw by only one point thanks to the knockdown scored by Pacquiao, the result was a split decision verdict, and after four years, fight fans had their winner. By scores of 115-112, 112-115, and 114-113, Pacquiao garnered the WBC Junior Lightweight Championship and became a champion in his fourth division, an accolade held by less than ten fighters in the sport’s rich history.
Debate has already arisen over which man deserved the decision, but like the even more exciting fight between Juan Manuel’s brother Rafael Marquez and Israel Vazquez from two weeks ago, one fighter was plainly the better boxer; the other, plainly the better brawler. In both bouts, the brawler won by coming up stronger when it counted most and scoring a pivotal knockdown in his respective fight. Marquez won his share of rounds, and when he did, they were glaringly obvious such as rounds six and eight, but it was Pacquiao who twice hurt Marquez severely, flooring him in the third and having him ready to go shortly thereafter.
Now having won the meaningless title in the division, Pacquiao plans to leave the land of the junior lightweights to attempt to win his fifth title in as many weight classes when he makes the leap to lightweight. The plan appears to be to pit Pacquiao with Erik Morales-conqueror, WBC Champion David Diaz as early as the summer. Diaz is a rugged fighter, making up for his lack of skill with passionate brawling, which should translate into a splendid slugfest with Pacquiao. To stand a legitimate shot of winning, Pacquiao must carry his punch with him to a division that promises not only bigger fighters but big fights, though it will be difficult for Pacquiao to find a more exciting match up than the man with whom he fought twenty-four tactical but intense rounds, Juan Manuel Marquez.
