Lots of opinions. All I can say is watch it again. Let the emotions cool down. Mute the announcers. Especially mute the crowd. Watch for shots landed, short, and especially blocked shots. I've seen several real robberies over 20 years of watching and scoring fights. This wasn't one of them in my opinion. It was simply a close fight which the 10-1 underdog and obvious crowd favorite did very well and much better than expected but not enough to win. I thought Pac won more rounds by being the aggressor (he didn't have to do that as the champ) and LANDING more punches (jabs AND power punches). The official punch stats support this as does the damage on the fighters faces after the fight (throwing out the one cut from the obvious headbutt). But mine is just another opinion. Who cares. What I will say is that neither fighter was happy with the result of this fight but at least it didn't end in a sucker punch or shoulder tackle.
Punch stats and "facial damage" are not criterion for judging fights. The former have often found to be quite skewed and say nothing about punch quality whatsoever and the latter is not particularly useful since Marquez's face gets marked up so easily at this point. Did you think Diaz beat Marquez in the rematch on the basis of "facial damage"?
Here are the punch statistics: Pacquiao - Marquez 578 TOTAL PUNCHES 436 176 TOTAL PUNCHES CONN 138 304 JABS THROWN 182 58 JABS CONN. 38 274 POWER PUN THROWN 254 117 POWER PUN CONN. 100 AVERAGE PER ROUND: Pacquiao landed 17 per round from 49 thrown, Marquez 11 from 36 thrown. this is the better score card.
I concur. I had it close, could have gone either way. But it most definitely wasn't a robbery, that idea is just whacked. If you watch the fight in the context of the other two fights, then not much has changed. If you watch the fight in the context of Manny vs Cotto, Margo, Mosley, then it was a let down and visually Marquez had much greater impact. Imo, that's unfair to JMM and Pac. Marquez looked great, but he backed up the whole fight, and he really didn't look like he wanted to prove he was better down the stretch. I think that's what hurt him in regards to the only scores that mattered, obviously not ours.
Nobody said punch stats or facial damage are used to actually score a fight. You don't even really have that information during the scoring of each round. However it DOES help justify your argument after the fact if you scored the fight based on punches landed and damage done which IS what you should be scoring on. As opposed to how loud the crowd roars or how bad you want the underdog or your favorite to win. And punch quality? What is punch "quality" anyway? Thats totally subjective. For example which is better. The flush obvious shot that lands perfectly but does no visible damage, or the semi glancing or sneaky hard to see blow that hurts, knocks back, or marks up the opponent? Opinions will probably differ.
That of course is only the case if you believe the CompuBox numbers are accurate to begin with, something that's not always the case. http://thecruelestsport.com/2010/12/13/the-10th-round-an-overview-or-why-compubox-is-useless/ And even if you do believe they are always accurate, they of course say absolutely nothing to the actual criteria that should be used to judge a fight. By punch quality I'm referring to the actual effectiveness of blows (you know, the main thing rounds are judged on), something not captured by CompuBox at all. Professional boxing is not equivalent to amateur boxing; not all landed blows should be treated equivalently and those citing CompuBox numbers as some kind of definitive measure of course presuppose exactly this (especially since the distinction between "power punches" and jabs is utterly unhelpful in this regard).
As I already said, nobody is JUDGING the fight on comp-u-box. It is a valid tool to evaluate the scoring AFTER the fight. One which by the way was quoted and argued over and over by Marquez fans after fights 1 and 2. Despite having to attack the waiting counter puncher all night, Manny still landed more shots of all variety in this fight. I think that is a pretty clear point. Well at least we agree that rounds should be judged on the effectiveness of the punches first. Where you lose me I think is how you determine effectiveness. Clean "looking" punches do not have anything to do with effectiveness. Effectiveness is measured by the reaction from the fighters after being hit. Or sometimes by the marks left on the fighters. (my case about facial damage which is a minor but a valid observation). But in any case, it's NOT obvious from how clean the punch itself "looks". When a round goes by and neither fighter was rocked, stunned, marked up, or even knocked back by the others punches, then there IS NO OBVIOUS effect and you have to score on other things. Primarily the number of landed punches and whom is taking the fight to the other.
Yes, let's eliminate all statistics shall we. Nothing in NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, La Liga, Premier League. It's not like statistics is correct...
Mixed emotions aggravated by an emotion got mixed is what happened here. Some people got dissapointed because they thought it was a robbery while others got dissapointed because manny did not dominate marquez as most thought he would. People are not used to Pac not dominating his opponents. Both these emotions were then combined as proof of why manny lost against marquez when the truth is the latter emotion outweighs the former much much more. And as the dust settled more and more people are realizing it wasn't a robbery after all. Only the floyd lovers will remain standing on the belief that Marquez clearly dominated Pac. I can't blame them after all Pac made floyd look like a girl without balls.