By Chris Williams: Mexican warrior Juan Manuel Marquez closed the chapter in his series of fights against Manny Pacquiao by knocking him clean out in the 6th round in their fourth fight in 2012, and he’s still reveling in how sweet the victory was for him. Marquez felt that he’d been given a bad deal by the judges in the first three fights against the popular Filipino fighter, so he decided to take the judges out of the equation entirely by knocking Pacquiao out in their final fight.
Marquez wanted to remove all controversy against Pacquiao in their fourth fight by obliterating him with a right hand to the head that left Pacquiao face down on the canvas in their fight on December 8, 2012.
In Marquez’s first three fights against Pacquiao, he had been held to a 12 round draw in 2004, and lost controversial 12 round decisions in 2008 and 2011. This writer saw all three of those fights and had Marquez winning all three. I thought the scoring was terrible.
Many of the rounds that should have gone to Marquez in my opinion wound up going to Pacquiao. The third fight was especially disappointing, because I thought it was a clear win for Marquez. The fact that the judges still saw Pacquiao winning was sad. You had to feel sorry for Marquez because he had fought his heart out, and yet he ended up losing one again to the popular Pacquiao.
Marquez said this via nwnoticias.com about feeling pleased with finally beating Pacquiao in his 4th fight against him:
“I can only say that it was divine justice,” said Marquez about his 6th round knockout win over Pacquiao. ”Everyone saw the previous fights. In the end I won the most clear and forceful. He even sought out and asked for the fifth fight, but it was never given because it was no longer needed. If the fourth had been just as controversial as the previous ones, I would have signed the fifth myself because I would not have felt good about myself. But there was no doubt. When I saw Manny lying on the tarpaulin, I said, ‘Now, get to it if you can!'”
For a lot of fans that saw Marquez’s first three fights against Pacquiao in 2004, 2008 and 2011, they didn’t understand how he could have lost two of those fights and gotten a draw in the first. Marquez looked like the better fighter in all of the first three fights.
The only thing you can say about the judges was perhaps they were unconsciously influenced by the large crowds that were mainly cheering for Pacquiao. I saw those fights and I was able to ignore the crowd to focus on what was happening in the ring, and Marquez looked like the better fighter in each of those fights. He had control with his superior ring generalship, and in each fight, he was the one that finished strong in dominating fashion.
I cannot blame Marquez for not wanting to fight Pacquiao a fifth time. He had closed the book on Pacquiao with his knockout win over him. If Marquez had fought Pacquiao again for a fifth time, he might have wound up losing another controversial decision if he didn’t knock him out. Marquez might have felt pressure to KO Pacquiao again if he taken a fifth fight with him. Why would he want to put himself in the position where he could potentially lose another controversial decision?
“After that third fight there was a kind of communion with the people, who was outraged and angry,” said Marquez. ”They saw me in the street and they told me: ‘They stole us again!’ “
Taking the judges out of play in the fourth fight made sure that there could be no controversy. Marquez actively trained for the knockout of Pacquiao, and then he went out and carried it out in the ring on the night in December 2012. It was an incredible ending with the shocking knockout of Pacquiao.
Marquez’s win over Pacquiao made huge news all around the world. It was an amazing event. For Marquez’s fans, they were so pleased and rightfully so. Marquez had had shown the fans that he was the better fighter than Pacquiao on three previous occasions, and he still wasn’t given the win over him. It was pretty disappointing for the boxing fans.
It would be interesting to the fans if Pacquiao and Marquez were to fight each other a fifth time, but it doesn’t look like it will happen again. Marquez has been inactive for too many years, and Pacquiao looks badly faded at this point in his career. Pacquiao is currently the WBO welterweight champion, but you can argue that he’s only a champion because he fought a flawed champ in Jessie Vargas. Pacquiao didn’t look good in beating him.
Pacquiao’s career really hasn’t been the same since his loss to Marquez. With the exception of Pacquiao’s second fight against Tim Bradley and his mega-fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr, his pay-per-view buys have stopped averaging 1 million buys like they were doing 2009 to his loss to Marquez in 2012. Whether the drop off in PPV buys is a result of Pacquiao’s knockout loss to Marquez or the boxing fans growing tired of the less than interesting match-making that’s been done for him by his promoters at Top Rank is unclear. I think it’s a little bit of both.
I think Pacquiao might have lost a lot of casual fans after his KO loss to Marquez, but the match-making that’s been done for him by his promoter Bob Arum hasn’t helped him continue to bring in lots of buys in my view. Instead of Arum matching Pacquiao against fighters like Amir Khan, Keith Thurman, Adrien Broner and Danny Garcia in the last three years, we’ve seen Arum putting Pacquiao in with Brandon Rios, Bradley [in third fight], Chris Algieri and Jessie Vargas. Those were all big whiffs by Arum in not making the right matches to bring in a lot of buys.
Unfortunately for Marquez, his career stopped shortly after his triumph over Pacquiao. Marquez lost a 12 round decision to Bradley in 2013, and then beat Mike Alvarado in 2014. While beating Alvarez, Marquez suffered a knee injury that has kept him out of the ring since that fight. There hasn’t been anyone other than Miguel Cotto that Marquez was really interested in fighting.
Getting a knockout win over Pacquiao is a fine cap to Marquez’s great pro career. It would have been nice if he had the four wins over Pacquiao instead of one, because it would have made Marquez a bigger. However, if Marquez had beaten Pacquiao in the first two fights, it’s unlikely that Top Rank would have let Pacquiao fight him a third and fourth time no matter how much money was available in those fights. It would have been foolish for Top Rank to let Pacquiao fight a guy that was consistently beating him repeatedly.