The boos started at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas right after the ring announcer read the scorecards and revealed that Manny Pacquiao had won a close majority decision over Juan Manuel Marquez.
The booing was understandable.
Most of the boxing world wanted Pacquiao to defeat Marquez convincingly Nov. 12 to set up the long-awaited super-fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. But what I saw from my second-row seat at ringside was something different ? from the HBO broadcast team, from my colleagues watching on television, even from the ringside judges.
I scored the bout 115-113 ? seven rounds to five ? for Mexico’s Marquez.
Honestly, I felt a bit guilty giving two other rounds to Pacquiao and tweeted right after the bout that Marquez was robbed by the official judges’ scores of 116-112 and 115-113 for Pacquiao. The third judge had the fight a 114-114 draw.
Marquez wisely stayed back and landed the more powerful punches. Meanwhile, Pacquiao appeared to be desperately chasing scoring blows while Marquez merely waited and expertly found his target.
Of course, controversial decisions are part of boxing’s tradition, especially when it involves a big fight.
Nevertheless, a few of my boxing-savvy colleagues were surprised by my round-by-round scoring. Watching the fight on television, they believed Pacquiao had won. Pacquiao landed 176 punches to Marquez’s 138, according to ComuBox’s statistics. Pacquiao also beat Marquez, 117-100, on power shots.
