There are three professions where being completely, indisputably wrong is a normal course of doing business: weatherman, political commentator, and sportswriter. Unlike the former two professions, where you can ruin someone?s picnic or bring down the entire foundations of democracy if your predictions fail miserably, a sportswriter being dead wrong can be the greatest blessing that the gods can bestow upon mankind. At least that?s what I tell myself after I was completely, utterly, gloriously wrong in my assessment of the quality of the Pacquiao-Marquez thriller.
Now mind you, I called the undercard so well that it was (to steal a line from Australian football commentator Dennis Cometti) centimetre perfect. I said Cruz-Burgos would be an entertaining, competitive scrap; it was that in spades, with Burgos adding a hell of a scalp to his resum? in winning a majority decision over Luis Cruz, who will himself be back to fight another day after taking his first pro loss. I said Breidis Prescott was an overrated fighter who faded in the late rounds in his fights; he got stopped in ten rounds by Mike Alvarado after shooting out all the bullets in the early going. I said Bradley-Casamayor would be embarrassing; the only mistake I may have made would be using a word that was too kind. But getting three predictions out of four right isn?t much comfort when the one missed was the main event.
Anyone who watched the entire card got a treat that should remind us all why we love boxing (as if Angulo-Kirkland hadn?t done so last week.) Those who watched the main event saw Manny Pacquiao look vulnerable and get booed loudly and lustily at the announcement of the decision (your friendly neighborhood commentator had it 115-113 Marquez, but this was far from a robbery?at least two rounds could be argued for Pacquiao, especially if you subscribe to the ?you have to beat the champ decisively or you didn?t beat him? school of boxing judging). Pacquiao, for the first time in years, came out of a fight looking like a guy who has something to prove. Which in turn means that we just got a whole lot closer to seeing Pacquiao-Mayweather. Manny Pacquiao now needs Floyd in order to prove that he can legitimately beat a strong counter-puncher (his three fights against Marquez, all of them close and all of them arguably wins for the Mexican, raise a doubt in the discussion of Pac among the all-time greats.)
