Marquez and Pacquiao Should Not Fight Again

By Boxing News - 11/18/2011 - Comments

By Glen Anglin: After anticipating Marquez-Pacquiao III more than any fight in recent memory, I was completely dissatisfied and disappointed after viewing the match. Not because the fight lacked action or because it was not fought at a high skill level, but because in the end we were left with another razor thin decision that had to be left to judges to vote the winner.

After 36 rounds of give and take, neither guy has established himself as the truly better fighter. Forget that Manny won two of the three in the judges’ eyes (and in reality would have won all of them if a nitwit judge had added his card correctly). The fact is that these 3 fights were too close to call.

The third installment also lacked the drama of the first two matches. Neither fighter was ever hurt or came close to being knocked down. This is in contrast to the previous two matches when both guys got their bell rung several times. The reason for that is that Pacquiao has adjusted his style in recent years. He is no longer the fighter of slashing, flailing attacks; he picks his spots and looks to counter and has tighter defense. The hyper aggression that was Manny’s trademark has been trained out of him. In other words, he fights like Marquez now. Against the larger, more aggressive, less technically proficient guys that Manny has been facing recently, the new Pacquiao style worked well. However, against Marquez it was a case of two great fighters evenly matched in almost every way, who simply cannot get the better of the other guy.

For the record, I predicted a Marquez victory in these pages and I scored the fight a 1 point victory for Marquez, scoring 3 rounds even. But after viewing it 2 more times in slow motion, I identified SIX rounds in that fight that could conceivably be given to either fighter or called even. So, if the judges choose to give all the close rounds to Pacquiao, or all the close rounds to Marquez, or a mixture, it means that the fight could have conceivably been scored 118-111 for Pacquiao, 118-111for Marquez, or anything in between. THAT’S how close the rounds were. It appeared to me that Marquez displayed superior ring generalship by making Manny wary of his counter shots, but that Manny still punched one for one with Marquez.

So, we are left with yet another excruciatingly close decision about which there will be accusations of robbery, fix and stupidity. It is none of those. It is simply the fact that after a 12 round fight, there is no clear cut way for judges to choose between Marquez and Pacquiao. Both guys deserve to win as much as they deserve to lose. If they fought 10 more times, we would be left with 10 more fights that are virtual draws.

So, please no more Pacquiao-Marquez fights. Enough is enough. Let these guys get richer by beating all the other guys in the 140 range. There are plenty out there.



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