It’s Monday. Welcome back for another edition of Observe and Fight, The Boxing Observer’s compilation of observations and random thoughts from the week that was in boxing. Get caught up on some of the most recent events you may have missed out on, including the robbery that wasn’t Pacquiao-Marquez III, Floyd Mayweather’s next step, the Cotto-Margarito Face Off, the UFC’s big letdown, and much more. Without further ado, check out the latest observations from The Boxing Observer.
Marquez might have felt robbed, but there was no robbery Saturday night. With the naked eye and the pageantry surrounding the fight, I tried to be as neutral as possible. According to CompuBox stats, I did a pretty damn good job of it. I gave the fight to Pacquiao 7 rounds to 5. Pacquiao outlanded Marquez 176 to 138 and landed 17 more power shots than him. But a fight cannot be judged based on the stats alone, so I went back Sunday morning, put the volume on mute, and watched the fight again. The second time around, with no sound, I scored the fight a draw, giving Pacquiao the final three rounds. All the Twitter and Facebook posts about how Marquez was robbed is just plain ridiculous. Each round is its own fight, and what happens in the previous round does not affect the next round. The only thing the scorecards proved is that Pacquiao and Marquez are made for each other and we may never truly know who the better of the two is. But make no mistake about it, there was no robbery on Saturday night.
