Tuesday, March 18, 2008 Quijano: A call for sobriety By Jingo Quijano Last Round
BY NOW you must have been bombarded with arguments ad nauseam on which boxer deserved to win. Well, stop the quibbling already.
The truth is, either boxer could have won that fight, and since the margins on the judges scorecards weren’t too wide, Pacquiao’s win wasn’t actually as scandalous as Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer would have us believe.
Of course, we all know he has zero credibility on this matter.
All great fights with plenty of two-way action are difficult to score. For the record, I had Pacquiao winning the fight by two points. But I concede fully that it could have been scored either way.
The rule of thumb to follow is that any fight won by a slim margin simply means that it could also have been scored either way. In such a case, the winning fighter wasn’t that dominant and another person could have seen it differently. It’s within the realm of possibility and reason, so to speak.
Ergo, Marquez could have won that fight or it could have been declared a draw and I wouldn’t mope about it.
SCORING ROUNDS. They say it’s a sin to score a round even. Well, if that’s case, may my unrepentant soul burn in the fires of hell as I scored three rounds even. I honestly, in good conscience, could not give those rounds to either fighter.
I think it’s a bigger travesty to force yourself to pick a winner in a round that was so evenly fought. It’s just plainly unfair to the other guy.
The fight was fought in waves and spurts. A lead right hand by Marquez landing flush on the Pacman’s chin would be answered by a stinging left straight from the latter.
The knockdown in round 3 was big for Manny, as it merited him a 10-8 score from all the judges. The rest of the rounds were all 10-9’s as what can be expected from a close, evenly fought match under the 10-point must-scoring system.
COMPUBOX. If you’re a numbers guy, then you would be disappointed to know that the stats don’t exactly provide a clear sanctuary for either fighter. Compubox numbers favored Marquez, though not by much. He threw fewer punches (619-511), but landed more (172-157). He also had more power punches landing at (130-114).
However, Pacquiao landed more on a “per round” computation, and if these were the basis, then Pacquiao really deserved the win. But Marquez dominated the rounds that he won, leading by wide margins in the eighth (21-5) and second rounds (18-9).
Of course, we all know that punch stats are just that, punch stats. They don’t measure the damage the punches actually inflict on the target or the level of aggression displayed by the fighters.
All told, bear in mind that judging is purely subjective. A judge may subconsciously favor a particular style and he should not be faulted for it. I ascribe no blatant error for the scores they tallied for this fight.
PAC’S THICK BACK. At the risk of belaboring a point, I had cautioned against Pacman coming in too heavy for the fight as it would negate his advantages in speed.
Horror of horrors, he reportedly came in at around 145 pounds at fight time. That could have worked well against the bigger and more ponderous Erik Morales who didn’t move around too much, but coming in slower against the nifty Marquez was a huge risk.
Notice how he got outfought in spurts mainly because Marquez landed first on several exchanges. The wildcat combinations were also few and far between. A lighter, quicker Manny would have capitalized on that knockdown in the third and ended matters early.
Instead, the added poundage, clearly took its toll on Manny as he was clearly huffing his way through the middle rounds. His back was noticeably thicker and bigger than Marquez’s and it hampered his movement and footwork.
Manny doesn’t have too be bigger than his opponents. If there’s one thing Roy Jones Jr. and Floyd Mayweather Jr. proved in annexing titles in several weight classes, it’s that you don’t have to be bigger. Just better.
LAST ROUND. It’s on my sister Jeehan, who celebrates her birthday this week. We miss you and look forward to your coming home. Cheers!
