Marquez Should Have Won Against Pacquiao

And so the world came to a halt. For the nth time.

My husband and I would always survey the streets of Makati everytime Manny Pacquiao has a boxing match. Today, as expected, most areas were desolate except for some people who were out and about or probably didn’t care that much for the fight. For us who are not so crazy about the national event didn’t bother to buy overpriced tickets at SM to see the uninterrupted match. We were content to place ourselves in our couch, nibbled on junk food and patiently waited for every round to progress. Of course we had no choice but to deal with commercials. Nonetheless, we got a bang out of Manny and Juan Manuel’s exciting fight.

Of course I have seen Manny’s ability as a warrior in his bout against Barrera and Morales and, although I am not a boxing analyst, I could tell that he is much more attuned to street-like sparring above anything else. This became more evident in his rematch with Marquez. While Pacquiao gave solid punches, he failed to calculate Marquez’s banking on his reach-advantage and strategic counter-attacks. The commentators said that Manny was expected to deliver fake punches to mislead Marquez and to unveil the latter’s techniques but I believe that Manny remained confused after several few rounds. While Marquez was, at some point, wobbly and jittery from Manny’s hard blows, he still managed to regain focus and momentum. In fact, most of his counter punches were delivered with accuracy. I consider Marquez as a very smart fighter while Manny, a power puncher. When the battle is between intelligence and strength, it usually results to extreme excitement and uncertainty as to the outcome.

Manny was expected to knockout Marquez during the first round, at most within nine rounds, but he never did. Manny has youth, speed and power as his main advantage. Marquez is a great fighter. Although it was a close fight between the two, I was under the impression that the judges missed out on some points in favor of Marquez. As soon as the 12th round ended, I was prepared for the decision to be in favor of Marquez. While it’s a great thing that a Filipino won the title, I felt that Marquez should have won. Even Manny looked surprised when he was announced the winner. It was like dejavu of the their first bout, where Manny was robbed of the crown. This time, it’s the other way around.

By the way, I won P500 against my cousin, who betted against Pacquiao.