If you wanted to know the real victor in the first two bouts between Manny Pacquaio and Juan Manuel Marquez, it would depend on who you asked.
Now, with the third bout, the one that was bound to produce a definitive, clear cut winner, in the books, who is the real victor?
That depends on who you ask.
For once again, the bout between Manny Pacquaio, pound-for-pound king and current welterweight champion, and his arch-nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez would be marked by controversy as Pacquiao would slip away with a majority decision to retain his championship.
Marquez, who on some betting lines before the bout could be found as a nearly-eleven-to-one underdog, was able to carry 142 far better than he had carried 144 a few years prior against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Marquez was built and sturdy, able to take Pacquiao?s punches, yet still maintained the requisite speed necessary to enact a game plan against the speedy ?Pac-Man,? which was to remain patient and counterpunch the counterpuncher.
Pacquiao, for his part, looked less like the Amazing Pac-Man of late and more like the wild Filipino of yesteryear, a jumpy, off-balance, one-dimensional version of his prior self, only at a bigger weight. Pacquiao was able to avoid the bait in the trap for a while, but from round six on jumped at the cheese, tiring of Marquez?s waiting game, and jumping in with wild offense, leaving plenty of openings for Marquez?s laser-precise counters. Compubox figures at the end of the fight show Pacquiao landed about 100 more punches than Marquez; the figures, however, cannot show the strength and precision of the ones Marquez landed on the champion, requiring stitching on Pacquiao?s right eye before the post-fight press conference.
