In the final minute of the sixth round Saturday, Manny Pacquiao was trying to finish Juan Manuel Marquez when a huge right cross at close range knocked Pacquiao flat on his face. He was out cold.
The knockout wasn?t the only reason this was the best fight of the four between the two, which is saying a lot, and Marquez emerged with all the vindication he?s going to need regarding how well he held up his end of the bargain in this series.
At the time of the knockout, Pacquiao was landing big lefts at will. Marquez?s nose appeared broken and he had been knocked down in the fifth.
Yes, Marquez (55-6-1, 40 knockouts) had scored a spectacular knockdown in the third round, catching Pacquiao with a looping right cross that Manny should have been able to see coming from Pahrump.
But other than that, it was all Pacquiao. If anything, the third-round knockdown seemed to help Pacquiao (54-5-2) by opening up the fight. Marquez began eating a lot of lefts, and the fifth-round knockdown didn?t stand out all that much alongside the other punishment Pacquiao was dishing out.
Manny was moving in and out as if Marquez were one of the other comparative chumps he?s fought and whipped in his superlative four-year reign in the welterweight vicinity, and he wanted to finish the job this time.
? I got careless, because I though I had him,? Pacquiao said. ?I was so overconfident that I got hit. It was that I didn?t see them. I didn?t expect those punches.?
Jack Dempsey said ?I forgot to duck? after he lost to Gene Tunney. That?s what President Reagan said shortly after having been shot by John Hinckley, too, which the politician Pacquiao might want to know.
Pacquiao seemed to enjoy this fight even though he lost, so much so that it?s difficult to imagine his retreating immediately into politics, his role as a congressman on the way up.
But he went down like a shot Saturday. It was at least a warning shot for his wonderful career and would be a good way to go out.
