IT was as clear as the sun rises in the east every morning: Manny Pacquiao defeated Timothy Bradley on Sunday.
Why two of the three judges, Duane Ford and CJ Ross, saw it otherwise would be a subject of debate to stay for not only many, many years to come but, perhaps, for all of eternity.
The identical 115-113 verdict of Ford and Ross awarding the fight to Bradley did not only shock Pacquiao and the entire world wise to the ways of the sweet science; it also shocked, stunned beyond belief, Bradley. Bradley alone reporting at the post-fight press conference in a wheelchair is the supreme irony of all: A winner in a wheelchair?
As PacMom Dionisia said in Filipino, ?How can that man be the champion when he is on a wheelchair??
Oh, well, it seems it?s become a trend: Renato C. Corona rode on a wheelchair before he was declared guilty of culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust only last month.
But back to the Pacquiao-Bradley fight.
Let me just cite that two of the giants of boxing from two separate eras saw Pacquiao the winner: Former world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield and Oscar de la Hoya, the six-time world champion in six weight divisions. Holyfield defeated Mike Tyson twice while de la Hoya lost by an eighth-round TKO to Pacquiao in 2009. Holyfield and de la Hoya are two of the greatest fighters of all time.
Ford?s explanation for his pro-Bradley vote: ?This is not the American Idol show. There is not a doubt that Mr. Pacquiao is the world?s most popular boxer today. But boxing is not a popularity contest.?
At first, Ross refused to give an explanation. In the end, I was told he did?but I?m not interested in what he said, anymore. It might just be as warped, as wickedly twisted, as Ford?s, anyway.
Heard that dissenter Jerry Roth, the one who scored it 115-113 for Pacquiao (that was also my score), also explained his tally.
Even as I haven?t read his explanation, I?m just too glad to know that Roth did the right thing. Roth validated my verdict. Whatever was the rationale behind Roth?s score, what mattered in the end was that Roth now symbolizes hope. His correct appraisal of the fight could only mean there is still hope insofar as judging a fight is concerned. May Roth?s tribe increase.
And so, again the question: How could Paquiao lose a won-fight?
It defies imagination, if not naked logic.
I submit that Pacquiao did not win the fight convincingly, sorely lacking in follow-up, killer, blows. But, for Chrissakes, he landed the more severe shots, he outboxed his foe, he dominated almost three-fourths of the fight.
The computer box, invented solely to monitor the punches of boxers in a fight, did not lie, could not lie. In all aspects of the CompuBox, Pacquiao was ahead?in the number of punches landed, in the number of power punches connected. In short, nothing in the CompuBox showed that Bradley was ahead, not even in one department.
I submit that Bradley had his golden moments, connecting with some good shots of his own. But overall, it was Pacquiao all the way to the effect that he was, to again state the obvious, the clear winner.
Was the fight fixed by the so-called Mob in the Sin City of the world that is Las Vegas?
Some say Bob Arum, the fight promoter, is logically the first suspect if the fight was a scam.
But how about this from Arum himself: ?It was the most ridiculous decision I?ve ever seen. In my entire life as a boxing man, this is the first time that such a decision has been arrived at. This is a disgrace to the sport that we all have learned to love through the ages.?
Arum has asked the Nevada State Commission to investigate.
Be that as it may, does that absolve Arum now of any wrongdoing?
Look, Arum was a vital cog in the staging of the ?Thrilla in Manila? on October 1, 1975, at the Cubao Big Dome won by Muhammad Ali over Joe Frazier via a TKO in the 14th round. For all its brutality and latent ingredients to make it a classic bout, that encounter was dubbed ?The Fight of The Century.?
With the uproar that accompanied Arum?s Pacquiao-Bradley fight, and considering the utterly crooked result in the aftermath of an utterly manipulated decision, would it be now proper to call Sunday?s tussle as ?The Fix of The Century??
If so, was Pacquiao, if only to stretch one?s demonic imagination, part of the conspiracy, considering, too, that he, in the eyes of even the most scarred veterans of fight-watching, seemed not intent on knocking out Bradley during the few times that there had been frontal skirmishes between them?
You be the judge.
THAT?S IT Alex Sison, my dear friend from way back, reacting to Pacquiao?s conversion to Born Again sect, asks: ?Maybe, Mr. Pacquiao has an ailment that we do not know? Many friends I know suddenly turn to Dear God for relief and comfort after discovering that they are sick or something.?
