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-Photo Credit:
N. Fukuda-
It’s been a while since I last wrote but I haven't stopped watching the fight
game. Some of it has been good, like the knockouts, and a lot of it has been shit,
like the decisions. However, at the end of the day all I can say is I’ve missed all of you. I love the fight fans because
they have a passion for their sport unlike any other fans. Having watched a bad
decision go to the wrong fighter again, I felt like I had to say something.
Last night’s fight between Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny
Pacquiao was so disturbing to me in many ways:
1st - Technically speaking, I thought the Director cut it way too
tight on many occasions. For example, when the fighters were in the middle of
the ring, we
didn’t need to see the side camera; the best shot would have come from the wide camera. Boxing has
been shown like that for over fifty years. Sorry, but I just had to say that
because fans are throwing down $50 dollars to see a fight, not the ref’s back.
2nd -
Manny Pacquiao was given a split decision victory over Marquez and yes, it was a
close fight, but that doesn’t mean Pacquiao won the fight. Just because it’s not a huge
robbery doesn’t make it any better, either. If it’s wrong, it's wrong and what happened
last night was wrong. The sad thing is the fans have gotten used to these
bad decisions and don’t get all out of sorts when it's wrong unless it's a clear
robbery. Listen, if you are leaving a bar and get stuck up with a knife and get
$10 dollars taken from you it’s not as bad as leaving a club getting robbed at gun
point and losing $3,000 dollars. But guess what? You still got robbed and it was
wrong. There aren’t levels to being wrong; if it’s wrong then it’s wrong.
There isn’t a gray area.
3rd -
The sad thing is that in boxing you don’t have a long shelf and after every big fight
you have a little bit less than you did before so I really get sick of guys
like the HBO commentators who aren’t in there taking punches trying to tell me
why Pacquiao won the fight, when they saw and called it a different way while
the fight was going on.
Juan Manuel Marquez deserves much better than he's gotten from the sport of
boxing.
This is a man who has worked his butt off to get back to the mountain
top after his 2004 fight with Manny and the loss to Chris John in 2006. Marquez
truly deserved his moment in the sun, and didn’t get it because of a knockdown in
the 3rd round, which is just shameless, considering how many times
Marquez hurt Pacquiao in the fight.
Juan Manuel threw about 100 less punches and still landed more than Pacquiao. He
had the lead in power punching as well. I went to a comedy club earlier
Saturday night and still for me the biggest joke of the evening was judge Jerry
Roth, who actually had Manny wining the fight by 3 points! Oh well, I guess the house
fighter gets the house rules. This is why people are walking away from boxing
and also why every time a fight goes to the scorecards people just get a gut
wrenching feeling because we all know here comes some bullshit.
As
for the fight, this is how I scored it. I gave Marquez rounds 1 and 2 just based
on counter punching and effective aggressiveness. Cleary, Manny won round 3 with
the knockdown of the clean left hook and because referee Kenny Bayless was so slow, at
the end of the round either guy almost could have been dropped. Round 4 again I thought Manny won because Marquez was just trying to
recover and also figure out a pace to fight that would allow him to survive. Rounds 5
through 8 were a boxing exhibition for Marquez, who not only won these rounds
going away but hurt Manny several times, including the thudding right hand that
opened up a cut over Pacquiao’s right eye. In my opinion there was one close round
and it was the 9th. I gave that round to Manny simple because I felt
the pace of the round was more to his liking and he got off first. That’s not
to say Marquez didn’t get a lot done that round but for me that was the only
close round. The 10th round was more Manny’s pace and it seemed like
it was starting to go his way but once again Marquez was able to stop Pacquiao's
momentum. Marquez won the last two rounds pretty easily. How the judges didn’t
give Marquez the 12 round still leaves me shook up, but at the end of the day I
had it 115-112 for Marquez.
Putting aside all agendas and your feelings toward the
fighters it was clear that most of the effective punches and
work came out of the Marquez's corner. That’s not to say Manny
didn’t land some big shots; he did. Manny hurt Marquez twice
with left hands. One was a clean left hook, the other a
looping Hail-Mary of a punch that did find its mark but
believe it or not, after that punch landed, Marquez went to work on Pacquiao. If Manny would have had it his way it
would have been a war for as long as Marquez could stand it,
but it wasn’t. The fight had many twists and turns but more
often than not it was Marquez's clean boxing skills that
slowed the fight down to a pace of his liking.
In closing, this morning I’ve spoken
to several fighters and people around the sport who know much
more about the game than I do and I’ve come away with three
clear things. First, everyone to a man felt Marquez won the
fight by two or more points and that the decision was
yet again a joke. The second thing is that the boxing public
wouldn’t be up in arms about it -even though it was clearly a
bad decision- because they have been conditioned by now, which
is why many people are walking away from the sport. Finally,
it won’t be the last time the house fighter gets the nod just
because he is the house fighter.
All I can say to that is -and I’m
stealing a line from Chris Rock in the movie 'Head of State' -
"It ain’t right, that shit is WRONG!"
Questions? Comments? Write Mr.
Freeman
here
03-16-2008
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