MEXICO CITY (AP) — Manny Pacquiao may have lost his first fight against Erik Morales last March but the Filipino fighter will have the distinction of making that fight memorable after it was voted as the most dramatic for the year by the World Boxing Council.
The WBC handed out its annual awards yesterday and cited the 12-round encounter as among the year’s best.
The bout was remembered for the sustained aggression of the two fighters who fought with everything they had.
Pacquiao lost a unanimous decision but many in the crowd and the millions who watched the encounter on television felt it would have had a different ending if the Filipino icon not suffered an accidental head butt in the fifth round.
With blood oozing profusely, Pacquiao struggled but he still fought bravely till the end, earning respect and the esteem of fighters and fans alike.
When the bell sounded ending the fight, the crowd of over 14,000 at the MGM Grand was on its feet. All three judges scored the fight 115-113 in favor of Morales.
The WBC chose super lightweight champion Floyd Mayweather as its boxer of the year.
Mayweather won the super lightweight title in January 2005 with an eighth-round TKO of Henry Bruseles, adding to his super featherweight and lightweight titles he won earlier in the decade.
He also won his debut bout in the welterweight division in 2005, a sixth-round TKO of Sharmba Mitchell in November.
Another US boxer, Jermain Taylor, received honorable mention as the best boxer.
The council declared the May 7 lightweight bout won by American Diego Corrales over Mexico’s Jose Luis Castillo on a 10th round TKO as its “best fight of the year.”
Mexican Marco Antonio Barrera was awarded the knockout of the year for his right to the head of South Africa’s Mzonke Fana in the second round of their April bout.
The honors will be formally presented at an awards ceremony Jan. 28-31 in the Caribbean coast resort of Cancun.
