Unfinished Business: Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez III & undercard RBR

Those punchstats.. compubox is as corrupt as the judges if you think that ****'s true.

damn.

 

Pacquiao needed to win to preserve the big fight's super-relevance. I'm not saying that the fight was fixed, but the fact is that the superfight's lustre would have been severely diminished if Pacquiao had lost.

 

The punch stats make no sense. Someone has to investigate that. JMM was getting too many body shots in between the action. He was making pac miss and miss wildly. When Pac landed a punch it was only one shot and Marquez answered back with 2-3 of his own. Arum in Marquez face after the announcement of the winner was priceless. Marquez may need therapy after this butt ****. He executed his gameplan and did not let Pac take control ever.

 

I wa pointing this out to my friends last night. They had the stats on screen mid round, and it showed 1 punch land for Juan during a stretch he landed at least 3. Then it added one in manny's column when Juan had just blasted him in the mouth.

Haha. Compubox. What a load of ****

 

no way, that fight would have went up in smoke in terms of the money. Like Margarito's Super Payday against Mosley(?) after the Paul Williams fight or Tommy Morrison's payday going down the tubes after the Bentt fight.

The fight might have happened but the luster of it is gone.

 

Haha word. That's how real conosuers roll right there.

Im Proud of Juan. Most folk didn't even give him a chance

 

Compubox is incredibly unreliable. Marquez landed more eye popping shots. Manny landed more shots period. Marquez' work rate cost him the fight.

 

Man, so you probably feel like **** and are still pissed about the decision.

I always like to see how I feel the next day about a fight, and holy ****.. I'm just more outraged. :fire

 

Not that I saw.. I didn't count, but I sure as **** didn't see him land more shots.

 

Was "out and about" last night, ordered the fight over at my "real house...", but tried to check in your RBR by IPhone.

Excellent calls on the live action. I didn't keep score on paper or anything to remember which rounds, but I was feelin' 9-3 or 8-4 Juan.

:good

 

If Pac's gloves touched Juan ANYWHERE, they counted it as landed for Pac.

 

BTW IB, is this thread a new record? 82 pages and 1,220 + posts?

 

Fight of the night was Alvarado vs. Prescott. Action packed, both guys throwing crisp punches from both the outside and inside, both heavy hitters, and it had drama. Prescott started off very well, throwing a great deal of hard punches, while Alvarado was forced to play defense. Pres used his height and reach fairly well. He won most all of the early rounds, but you could see that Alvarado was pacing himself, playing defense, and still firing a crisp shot here and there. Alvarado did not want to open up too much because Pres was throwing so hard and so often that Mike might get caught with a big one if he was too reckless. Plus Prescott had the height and reach, so he could fire off long range shots. Pres slowed just a bit and Alvarado got going more and more as the rounds progressed, and the fight increasingly heated up. Eventually, they were warring on the inside, going back and forth with crisp shots, particularly with the uppercut. Alvarado was a bloody mess for most of the fight, but you could see he was still very strong and frisky. He came on well and was turning the tide of the fight. However, when Alvarado took off the 9th round and gave it to Pres, it looked as if Alva had thrown away a chance at a draw or a decision. But it turned out that he didn't need it. He finally caught Pres with some brutal shots and all the cumulative punishment and hard pace finally caught up with Prescott. Alvarado's brutal uppercuts snapped his head badly, and Pres went down. When he rose, he tried to survive by grabbing and leaning in, but took some more uppercuts, and his legs were less than stable. Ref stopped the bout and Alvarado won a come from behind KO in the most entertaining bout of the card.

Bradley looked very good. Body is rock solid and very muscular. He has crisp, solid punches, good speed, nice defensive reactions, and maintains a good workmanlike pace, applying consistent pressure. He was simply too much for Casamayor from the start, as Joel mostly fought to survive, doing a lot of clinching, until he was worn down. Casa was down twice in the bout from body punishment, and the corner properly stopped the fight after the second kd.

To be totally honest, Pac-Marquez was not a great fight in terms of amount of work or number of exchanges. It was the least entertaining of the three bouts, and the most cautious and tactical. In fact it was quite dull in terms of action, unless you appreciate the drama of a very close bout with neither man being able to get over on the other for very long, and neither wanting to take too many chances. It was like watching two chess masters who have an immense amount of respect for one another, and their styles, instead of making for a great fight, manage to neutralize one another. No checkmate by either, and the match ends in a stalemate. That was this fight. Marquez proved that Pac can't get over on him, but also that he can't really get over on Pac either. At this point, I have no desire to see a fourth bout.

Marquez was the super cautious counterpuncher who only wanted to punch in spots, and usually second, and liked to slide back and keep it dull, but managed to control the style of the fight, and when he punched, he punched hard, fast, and solidly. He probably landed the best blows of the fight, but that's not saying much, for neither man could land very often. Juan was so cautious and rarely leading that you blame him for the fight being less than great. Pac too was cautious, the most cautious he has ever been, because even though he led and you sensed that he wanted more action, he was befuddled by Marquez's ability to lay back and counter. Pac had troubles landing, or landing very often, and he sensed that Juan would be always ready to defend and counter. Neither man could gain any real momentum, or if they did, it was short lived, and then the pendulum would swing back the other way or back to neutral, even within one round.

I thought every round was extremely close. In fact, the majority of the rounds could easily have been scored evenly, or one way or the other. Reasonable minds could differ. Very few clear rounds. It was a take what you like fight, without a whole lot to like. Just a painting to appreciate because you know it was done by two masters, but not one to enjoy. If you didn't know who they were and just showed the bout to someone who knew nothing about boxing, he might either fall asleep or wish there were another 10 rounds so that it could be settled more definitively.

I scored it either 4-3-5 for Pac or 4-4-6 even a draw. If you like the guy who tries to make it a fight a bit more, you go Pac. If you like the control of the fight with a few solid shots here and there, but cautious to a fault, you go Marquez. I think an old school ref/judge would have either raised both men's hands and called it a draw, or he would have given Pac the slight edge for showing the ever so slight gamer qualities. But not by much, so my sense is this fight should have been a draw.

I think Pac needs to learn to either develop more of an inside game, or to learn to counter a counter, or to bait Marquez to lead or counter prematurely so that Manny could attack off it. That is, he should have anticipated/known that Marquez was a counter puncher, so he should have been ready to defend those counters and come back with more, or to go in further and closer and take away the distance that Marquez needed to counter, or feint/step/throw a bait punch to make Marquez throw so Manny could duck/block and then attack off the Marquez lead. I don't really think Pac had a game plan for this fight at all, other than to not allow Marquez to counter him very often by being cautious himself, and not taking too many risks or for very long. Hence, he didn't show the improvement that was anticipated.