Marquez vs Pacquaio – What the Decision Means for the Sport
By Jasveer Singh Gill
The timing of the highly questionable decision to award Manny Pacquaio a majority decision win over Juan Manuel Marquez could not have been worse.
On the same night that the UFC went out for the first time for FREE on one of the world’s biggest TV networks in the world boxing produced another unsatisfactory conclusion to what is probably the biggest fight of 2011.
The hundreds of thousands that tuned in to the first UFC on Fox TV would have saw a very very conclusive victory for Junior Dos Santos and have no doubt that he is the definite best heavyweight in MMA today. The hundreds of thousands of viewers that saw Pacquaio take on Marquez will have seen a very close fight that has left the overwhelming majority of viewers believe the wrong fighter won a decision. Now, with talk of a fourth fight being looked into just to give Marquez another chance to gain the victory that most consider he has already earned, the millions of combat sports fans that watched both events will be left wondering when boxing will go back to being a sport, rather than the circus it has become.
Looking back in the cold light of day, the decision was a tight one but still a bad one. In a fight this close the victory should go to the boxer that produced the better quality work. The head-snapping shots, the thumping body shots – these came from Marquez. Post fight statistics show that Pacquaio did in fact connect with more punches in the fight, although Marquez landed a higher percentage of the punches he threw. Marquez proved he was a true professor of the science of boxing though, perfectly controlling the distance in the fight, making sure that the majority of Pacquaio’s punches (especially his jab which connected more than any other punch) landed at full-extension, meaning they landed without full power.
Although fans may feel cheated about the result they will definitely not feel cheated about the fight itself, which was a magnificent showcase of top class boxing. Both fighters gave it their all and in regards to entertainment, this was one of boxing’s highlights of the year. However, the bigger picture still paints a drearier picture about the state of boxing.
Looking back at the big fights in boxing this year, boxing fans have a real right to feel let down by this sport. Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye was the biggest let down fight for a very long time. The explosive, fast, elusive and powerful Haye had completely conned the public by pretending he was going to go out and pressure Klitschko, going for a knockout victory. Instead he came out and fought on the back-foot, hoping he could either find a wondrous one punch knockout or steal a decision victory. The build up saw attention and excitement get injected back into heavyweight boxing but the actual fight was such an anticlimax it has overly done more damage than good to heavyweight boxing.
Next, Floyd Mayweather’s fight against Victor Ortiz. Again, the ending of the fight was more circus than sport. A fighter that was not fighting back took a punch while he was not looking. Finally, the recent fight of Bernard Hopkins vs Chad Dawson ended in round two after Dawson clearly fouled Hopkins, by shoulder charging him to the floor. Hopkins writhed around the floor injured and showed no real desire to fight on. Many felt that he was faking his injury.
Here we have three of the biggest fights this year in boxing, if not THE biggest three, and all of them ended in a manner which the vast majority of boxing fans were unhappy with.
Boxing is a sport where generally most fans would rather see a great contest than a certain competitor win. Of course, if a fighter is representing a certain country he has a legion of fans prepared to back his case for any decision but most fans just view simply hoping to see a great contest.
This mentality has been taken in and embraced by the UFC and every month, often more than once, the biggest MMA promotion in history delivers a stack of great contests with conclusive victories. Boxing very rarely delivers on both fronts in big fights. Previously, only Pacquaio was doing this for boxing. He was beating fighters, putting on a spectacular show and winning clearly. Now it seems that not even he can keep boxing in sports fans’ good books.
Talk of the fight being fixed and favoured to Pacquaio so the huge amount of money his fights generate would not become diminished is inevitable. Conspiracy theories started circulating as soon as the decision was announced. Such is the disbelief surrounding the result that most fans can not really believe that the decision made was an honest one.
As we come to the end of 2011 we can at least say it was a year when boxing saw a lot of big fights get made. What fans made of the fights after they happened though is the reason that boxing is clearly in a state.
