Pacquiao-Marquez III, Mayweather on Line One

Boxing Pay-Per-Views so often turn out to be massive disappointments—none more obvious than the recent Mayweather-Ortiz debacle that ended with controversial cheap shots.  I knew, absolutely KNEW, that Pacquiao-Marquez III stood no chance of disappointing, and I was right.

The risk was that what a lot of professionals were saying about Marquez would be true—that he’d be past his prime, and that he couldn’t handle the extra weight it would take to get up to welterweight, and that Manny would walk over him.  That all turned out to be complete nonsense.

I never thought the size would be an issue, and in fact, Marquez took much better care to put on real muscle this time than he did when he fought Mayweather at welter a couple years back.  It was almost as if he had returning to lightweight on his mind back then, rather than becoming a true welter.  Pacquiao has always been basically a lightweight choosing to fight up in size anyway.  Marquez, to me, looked much, much bigger than Manny in the upper body, and in fact, outweighed Pacquiao by 2 pounds on the unofficial fight night scale (most of Manny’s weight gain over the years has been in added muscle his massive, tree trunk legs).

It was simply a case of two men whose styles all but cancel each other out.  Manny is the consummate aggressor, and Marquez is the expert counterpuncher.  People have talked about Manny looking more confused than usual in this fight.  I don’t think it was confusion at all—it’s just that he’s eaten a ton of Marquez leather over the past seven years, and he knows exactly what’s NOT going to work.  So he took more time and more caution in deciding when to attack.

At the end of the day, judges (rightly, in my view) favor the aggressor in close rounds.  When in doubt, I think you should ALWAYS give the nod to the guy forcing the action.  When the counterpuncher has clearly landed the more clean, effective blows, give him the round.  But the benefit of the doubt SHOULD go to the guy who makes the fight.  Manny out-threw and out-landed Marquez, and short of knock downs, that’s going to give him most of the close rounds.

I love Marquez—I’m a fan, I’ll always be a fan.  But I think if he goes back and watches it again, he’ll stop whining about getting robbed.  I thought he might have won four rounds, MAYBE five.  I won’t argue long with someone who gave him six and the draw.  You would be very hard-pressed to find seven Marquez rounds.  He has no right to complain.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE FUTURE….Actually, I think this couldn’t have worked out any better, in terms of the possibilities of FINALLY putting together the fight that EVERYONE wants to see—Mayweather-Pacquiao.  Manny’s relatively pedestrian performance has to at least ease some of Floyd’s fears of fighting him.  Floyd is more interested in protecting his unbeaten record than anything else, which is the only reason he’s ducked Pacquiao this long.

A lot of the experts took Manny’s performance on Saturday as proof that he is not in Mayweather’s class—after all, Floyd had absolutely no trouble in dispensing with Marquez, and Manny has struggled toe-to-toe with him three times now.  On the one hand, I understand that argument, and you’d have to make Floyd the slight favorite because he’s an even better defensive fighter and counterpuncher than Marquez.

ON THE OTHER HAND…by the same logic, Pacquiao has actually looked BETTER than Floyd against their other three recent common opponents.  Floyd won a competitive split decision against Oscar De La Hoya, while Manny nearly killed him.  Floyd scored a late knockout win over Ricky Hatton—Manny put him to sleep in 2 rounds.  And Manny didn’t lose a second (except for a bogus fake knockdown called late in the fight) against Shane Mosley, while Floyd nearly got knocked out by Shane in the 2^nd round before recovering to win a blowout decision.

STYLES MAKE FIGHTS.  Plain and simple.  There’s something about Manny and Marquez that make them a tough match for each other.  It would be that way if they fought 10 times.  It takes nothing away from the fact that Floyd and Manny would STILL be an extremely compelling match-up in their own right.

Manny would force Floyd to fight more than he ever has before.  He may well knock Manny senseless, but it would be a FIGHT—an absolute war.  Floyd’s never had a war.  It would be fun to see how he reacts to getting into one.

Rest in Peace, Smokin' Joe

Last night, the sporting world lost one of its all-time greats with the passing of Joe Frazier, who had been suffering with liver cancer.  Joe fought in the golden age of heavyweights, which was the late 1960s through the 1970s.  It sounds like he was able to have peace late in his life, which is good to know.

Joe lived most of his retirement as an angry and bitter man who was unable to let certain parts of his past go.  Specifically, he couldn’t let go of the way he was shamefully treated by Muhammad Ali.  After Ali was stripped of his titles for dodging the draft, it was Frazier who came to his defense to convince the boxing world that Ali deserved another chance.  After Ali (foolishly) squandered his fortune away, it was Joe that loaned “the Greatest” enough to get by until he got back on his feet.

And then when the fight was finally made, Ali turned to the most ruthless and personal forms of insults to promote the fight, and it was completely unnecessary.  Everyone wanted to see the fight anyway—half the country wanted to see the draft dodger knocked out, and the other half cheered him as a hero of the hippie causes and black power.  But he verbally reduced Joe to the role of the “Uncle Tom,” and the uneducated backwoods N-word. 

It initially backfired.  Joe took it to heart and unleashed all of his fury on Ali in their first epic battle in 1971, which he won by unanimous decision, nearly knocking Ali out in the 15th.  But the fight nearly killed both men, and Joe was the worse for wear of the two.  He truly was never the same.  He was beaten to a pulp by a young George Foreman in 1973, and lost his rematch to Ali not long after.

1975 saw the third installment of the Ali-Frazier rivalry, and it was easily the most brutal of the three fights.  Joe was very much in it till the end, but both men were near the point of death.  Ali was clearly inflicting the most punishment in the later rounds, and Frazier’s trainer, Eddie Futch, refused to let his man fight the 15^th and final round.

I CONTEND TO THIS DAY that Futch should have let him continue.  Ali had demeaned him and reduced him to garbage in the eyes of many, when all he ever did was try to help his friend out.  Frazier should have been allowed to have that last round to go out there and knock Ali out, or die trying.  He deserved that right as a warrior.

But the stoppage stayed with him for the rest of his life, and bitterness consumed him.  In 1996, Joe commented on watching a shaking and quivering Ali light the Olympic torch for the Atlanta games.  Frazier said that if he had been there, he would have just pushed Ali into the fire.

But from what I understand, within the last year or so, he forgave Ali.  I only hope he died in peace.

God bless you, Joe.