Understandably, the Mexicans felt raw. When Manny Pacquiao was interviewed on the stage after the fight, you couldn?t hear what he was saying. It was drowned out by a collective boo that arose from the bowels of the arena and boomed across it. Along with the beams of light that danced around the cavernous hall like laser swords crisscrossing each other, it was bedlam. Loud music pulsed. Some threw bottles into the ring.
The Mexicans were still spewing their anger down the hallway among the thick crowd that crawled toward the exit, complaining about how they were robbed. At the spot where posters of the match hung on the wall in profusion, showing Pacquiao and Marquez with arms akimbo looking fiercely at the world, someone shouted, ?Marquez! Marquez!? The others took it up. ?Marquez! Marquez!? the hallway boomed.
The Filipinos did not reply. Why should they? They had won. Let the Mexicans lick their wounds.
But the Filipinos were not exulting either. Some were not altogether sure who had won the fight. Others wouldn?t have minded if the fight had ended in a draw. But everyone knew it wasn?t the fight they had expected to see. Everyone knew it wasn?t the fight they had gone there to see. They were there to see another masterful performance by Pacquiao, another annihilation of a seemingly fearful opponent by Pacquiao, another claim to the title of ?Mexi-cutioner? by Pacquiao.
Pacquiao had won. But the Filipinos did not feel elated, they felt relieved.
Pacquiao was the prohibitive favorite in the fight. The odds were 9-1, or 8-1 at best, a thing that did not change greatly at the eve of the fight. Which probably added to the ire and fire of the Mexicans: They hadn?t just been cheated of victory, or so they thought, they had been deprived of a fortune, or so they were. Many compatriots, congressmen included, were telling me they were betting on the round at which Pacquiao would deck Marquez?it wasn?t a question of if, it was a question of when. Just betting on who would win wasn?t worth it. Too little to gain, too much to lose with the tsamba.
That belief was driven home by the images that flashed on the screen overhead before the fight begun. Which was of Pacquiao demolishing his recent opponents, the last of whom, a thing to put fear in the hearts of the dauntless, or hopeful, being Ricky Hatton looking like a cartoon character with his eyes going ?x? after receiving a left from Pacquaio flush to his jaw. The Mexicans, of course, were chanting Marquez?s name deafeningly, which made me wonder if like Steve Jobs (I?ve just been reading Water Isaacson?s biography of him) they weren?t trying to twist reality to fit their will, or their need. I was tempted to conclude afterward that, alas, reality conforms only to the demands of geniuses.
