Boxing News Flash: Marquez Makes Pacquiao Look Bad But Loses Controversial Decision.
Marquez style throws off The Pacman's Balance
The anticipated rematch of Marquez vs Pacquiao III started off as something of a chess match without any truly heated exchanges for the first few rounds. Pacquiao promised to get the Marquez monkey finally off his back in this fight but he failed to keep his promise. There were no knock downs and neither fighter was ever close to going down. Each fighter showed respect for each other from the start with pacman carefully trying to work his way into punching range and was trying to get Marquez off balance with quick head and foot fakes but Marquez kept his cool and his balance and was able to counter punch and land some nice clean shots to the body. As the fight went on what became apparent was that Marquez's was quick enough to counter effectively with flurries and his movement and compact style was proving difficult for the pacman to time. So much of sports has to do with proper balance. Manny may have the bigger bombs but all his offensive movement to find his range was leaving him off balance much of the time as Marquez was proving an elusive target. In return this left pacman open for Marquez to counter punch him with power which he started doing more often as the fight came to the middle rounds. Manny looked a bit perplexed as he was caught by Marquez with some nice shots which checked his fruitless aggession time and again. Marquez was in great shape for an older fighter of 38 and was not slowing down or backing down as manny continued to attack. Marquez was the one with the rhythm and great balance and was making pacman pay for his awkward lunging attacks. His compact punching was often done in flurries and he was able to elude much of pacman's attack by ducking under manny's straight lefts to the head throughout the fight. When Marquez felt he had manny off his rhythm and game he started going on the offensive landing some clean power shots to the pacman's head to clearly win the middle rounds delivering the most damaging punches of the entire fight. Manny to his credit did press the attack all night but it was far from the effective aggression we would expect from him. I give the credit to Marquez because he was able to keep pacman off his timing by boxing brilliantly in spurts and by making himself a difficult target to find. Maybe pacman is trying to get the Mayweather fight signed once and for all any way he can by throwing in a clinker for Mayweather to gawk over. But the truth seems to be Marquez has the speed, power and defensive boxing skills and know how to throw a wrench into pacman's gears. Mayweather Jr. after seeing this fight will forget about all the steroid talk and will look to sign because I'm sure he saw what I saw and that is like waving a chunk of red meat, a filet mignon to a hungry Mayweather Jr. who looks for such kinks to exploit himself. This fight proved pacman can be beaten by a fighter who can move and counter punch with speed and power. Many will see this decision as a gift to Pacquiao. I thought he lost by two rounds at least with Marquez looking the much sharper of the two. He was fighting his fight. Marquez may have even earned another shot at Mayweather or pacman. Look for Pacquiao vs Mayweather next spring. After tonight I think the fight is on again for real unless pacman packs it in. Mayweather Jr. saw what I saw, The pacman wasn't on anything.