Pacquiao out-landed Marquez by wide margin

By Boxing News - 12/09/2012 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao out-landed Marquez by wide marginBy Jason Kim: Manny Pacquiao fought really well for the first two rounds last night against Juan Manuel Marquez, and had he stayed at that pace he’d be the WBO’s “Champion of the Decade” instead of Marquez. Pacquiao out-landed Marquez by almost a two to one margin with 94 landed compared to Marquez’s 54, which showed clearly that Pacquiao was well in control of the fight.

Where Pacquiao made a huge error that cost him the fight ultimately was after he was knocked down in the 3rd round by a big looping right hand from Marquez that he wasn’t expecting. Pacquiao was ready to block that particular punch but he was surprised by the wide arc of the shot, because it was much wider than Marquez’s previous shots.

Before that he’d been throwing pretty much straight shots aside from his hooks to the body. But when he launched that right hand in the 3rd, Pacquiao wasn’t prepared for such a dramatically different angle of the shot and it subsequently knocked him down. The mistake on Pacquiao’s part was his reaction to the knockdown.

Instead of staying calm and choosing to box Marquez in smart manner, Pacquiao banged his gloves together as if to say ‘let’s brawl’ and he then streamed straight ahead into slugging mode with Marquez. Pacquiao continued with that aggressive offensive pattern until the he eventually got poleaxed by Marquez’s right hand in the 6th.

Pacquiao should have continued to fight smart like he had in the first two rounds because he would have the won fight had he kept the action on the outside and picked Marquez apart with single shots instead of rushing forward. If you study the first two rounds you’ll notice that Marquez was helpless when Pacquiao wasn’t taking the fight to him. Marquez was throwing very few punches and was just standing around, shooting a rare shot.



Comments are closed.