IBHOF Class of 2013

Sorry for the delay, Shake.

Marquez's performance against Pacquiao. I think it should have been a remarkable, redemptive performance that saw an aging great overcome the odds with one perfect shot.

I find their series captivating as an analyst/strategist first and foremost because their respective styles are the bane for each other. That's rare at that level.

It should have been remarkable, but my instincts were kicking the hell out of me from the opening bell that something wasn't right about it. Marquez's musculature (his shoulders looked like an outline of the Alps and you get that at 39 years old?). That squatting display on 24/7. Marquez's piece of crap "strength and conditioning" coach (why the bleep would that outlaw snitch be allowed to cast a very suspicious shadow over the Marquez camp? The guy is practically daring anyone to catch him -he knows damn well how to cover his tracks. "Marquez looks like the Hulk" he said and I can hear him chuckle about it. I'd like to stomp him). Finally, that colossal power that was enough to drop Pacquiao for the first time in 36 rounds.

The power is what bothers me the most. Pacquiao should have realized after the first knockdown that this was not the same man he fought last year. He should have been far more careful because that overhand right in the 3rd round almost took his head off. The finisher was a perfectly-timed counter right that had all of physics working for it and Pacquaio in full cooperation with it (he was coming in fast and into the line of fire, and his eyes were closed). That shot may have won Marquez the fight anyway...

But it's the first shot that dropped him that bothers me the most. Sure, it snuck around the guard. Sure it was an overhand. But it was too heavy and slung too hard in my eyes. I'm very suspicious, man.

I was trying to think like Marquez --he was beside himself after the last loss and even a stand-up guy like him has a breaking point. I think it not unlikely that he decided "hey, I'm fighting four men as it is in Pac and the judges, I need to even it out."

Maybe, just maybe, Pacquiao got what he had coming to him for his own use of PEDs. But that doesn't make it right ---only more wrong because its two top guys juicing. And we already know that most everyone is doing it because they can and there are plenty of justifications to do it. It's ugly stuff man.

All I know is that I thought Pacquiao was dead when he was lying there. And if boxing doesn't smarten up soon, the brain injuries are going to jump up in a big way.

This isn't a bunch of guys on the juice like Lance Armstrong, riding bicycles up hills.

--Boxing is already a death sport, dammit.