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Marquez vs
Pacquiao:
This had to be illegal
Executive Editor,
Joe Rein
Photos by Jan
Sanders, Los Angeles
website:
http://www.hollywoodheadshotstudio.com
All pictures are copyrights of Fightworld.us, all rights reserved
 In
an instant, everything a fight fan lives for was
happening – magnificent doesn’t begin to
cover it.
A near-capacity
crowd at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas was one
roar, rocking the building, threatening to shake
loose the paint from the walls. Manny Pacquiao, in
little more than a minute into the first round had
dropped Juan Manuel Marquez with a left that most of
the crowd and Marquez didn’t see.
Two more times
Marquez hit the canvas from the same left – no one
could believe their eyes -- leaving Mexico’s most
finely-schooled fighter shocked,
 hurt
and steamrolled the way Barrera had been the year
before.
There was so much
tension in the air, on the first knockdown; I’d
leaped to my feet before I knew it -- papers, coffee
cups flying in all directions in the press section.
Jaded beat reporters as wide-eyed and yelling as
loudly as the fans -- all thoughts of note taking
forgotten. The shouting in my ears was mine. I
hollered myself hoarse against a decibel level that
threatened to blow out the walls.
Juan Manuel
Marquez was down a third time, looking like Jack
Johnson shielding his eyes from the sun against Jess
Willard in Havana. Marquez was dead – out!
There was no way he would rise. But, like
the Phoenix…he was on his feet by eight. We would
go home early… but hardly disappointed, and with a
memory that would last a lifetime – we saw it live!
Everything that Pacquio showed in sparring leading
up to this moment wasn’t exaggerated. Mexican fans
were as stunned as Marquez.
Pacquiao struck
like a mongoose, with numbing power. He would now be
the hottest star in the sport -- Murad Muhammad’s
crowning jewel. This beaming cherub, in two short
years, has done more for the Philippines than all
the ad dollars in their treasury. If he finished
the demolition in round two, his welcome in Manila
would make the Krakatoa blast seem like a blip on
seismographs.
 I
hadn’t seen euphoria like this since VJ Day on Times
Square. It was America seeing Joe Louis knock Max
Schmeling out in the return. The deafening sound in
the MGM was the equal of the 60,000 at Yankee
Stadium that night.
Murad had
delivered what he promised, an exciting fight and an
exciting fighter in Pacquoia, who may be the world’s
answer to an energy crisis. The huge Filipino
contingent was ecstatic. Nobody was left with a
voice or his hearing after round one.
Marquez made his
way back to his corner -- his nose pulp and
bleeding, his eyes glazed. Nacho Beristain and his
team did battlefield-triage in the one-minute rest.
At the bell, with Beristain’s aid and calm, Marquez
rose like Lazarus to face sure devastation and loss
of his place among Mexico’s legends.
Referee Joe Cortez
had to be very alert. Marquez could be too brave for
his own good. The din was indescribable and hadn’t
diminished in the rest period. This had to be
illegal; anything that was this much of a high had
to be addictive.
Mexican fans were
in shock. Marquez was in shock…and pain.
Everybody was delirious.
Marquez was on
stiff legs, his nose a red smear; he looked like
he’d been mugged, but his hands were up the way
Beristain had drilled him since he was
12-years-old. Not a hint of lost confidence or
poise.
Pacquiao was
loosed from his corner for round two by Roach to
finish the job.
But Marquez, by
instinct, fended Pacquiao off with a right held
high, moving clockwise warily around the ring,
keeping his defense solid, trying to gather
himself.
 Amazingly,
his technique and resolve kept him upright under
Pac’s furious attempts to get home with that left
again. Marquez not only remained conscious but,
impossibly, with ring generalship and strategic
jabs, earned the round on this card. The corpse was
coming to life.
Round after round
it continued: Packman almost leaping in,
foot-feinting, attacking, and pressing -- a force
field preceding him. But, slowly, Marquez was no
longer fighting a delaying action. All the
short-circuited synapses and muscle connections were
firing up and he was boxing the way the handicappers
had expected -- why no other featherweight or
manager wanted any part of him. The only thing he
was missing was a suit of lights and the
accompanying “Ole’s!” from the crowd as he avoided
Pacquiao’s bull rushes and placed banderoles of his
own.
Marquez had skill,
balance, punching power, and he was mixing up his
combinations. He not only had the tools but what
every great fighter must have: character and
Corazon.
The sleek and
aquiline Marquez (with delicate hands) who stood on
the scale at the weigh-in – almost a greyhound in
profile – now looked more Yory “Boy” Campos than
concert pianist. He was Tony Zale with finesse. He
didn’t just slog on, he ate Manny’s punches when he
had to, but now he wasn’t passive-aggressive. 
His counters carried heft, and he was getting full
extension on his punches, like the solar plexus blow
that took the soul from Robbie Peden.
But the threat of
Pacquiao’s left was always in the air, like the
dread of an intruder in the middle of the night.
Marquez was a
thoroughbred, a credit to his country and to his
sport… But, he did strike low many times -- once in
the tropics, without a single warning from Cortez.
But to this observer, it didn’t appear intentional,
like a Hopkins’ street intimidator. Which is little
consolation when you’re hit there.
Manny bounced and
bobbed and herky-jerked, left and right, trying to
find a way in to this riddle that taunted and
stabbed him and refused to fall. 
Even though Pac seemed to land several lefts with
the same impact that started all the trouble,
Marquez didn’t wobble and continued to circle and
counter with more prolific combinations. By the
fifth round, he had Pacquiao’s right eye cut.
Pacquiao is wired
to go forward. So, though his reflexes were quick
enough to pull his head away from Marquez’s lead
right hands, the second and third ones found him,
diffused of power; but Pac leaned so far back, he
had to struggle to keep his balance and re-group,
which didn’t look good to the judges.
By round eight,
Marquez wasn’t staving off the inevitable; he was
winning the fight. Mexicans all stood a lot taller
seeing their man come from the grave and make this
movie-drama come to life.
 Pacquiao’s
face was reddening and beginning to swell-- his
right eye, cut and bleeding. So, there they were:
A battle of the titans, heavyweights in
featherweight bodies. No hyperbole would do justice
to this battle of wills. Pacquiao had wreaked havoc
on his first sortie, but Marquez, like Germany after
world war two, came back from the ashes stronger
than ever.
Usually there are
ebbs and flows in crowd noise. In this one, the
needle was at the limit. It was at the top of the
meter even between rounds, and when there was a
spike in the action, it went off the charts.
Marquez was the
consummate boxer-puncher. He was conducting a
clinic for all but a few rounds. To fight at this
level, and to keep his composure after everything in
his brain must have been scuttled speaks to
Marquez’s high-altitude training, Beristain,
experience and what an Aztec warrior means.
 What
Pacquiao lacked in fundamentals, he made up for in
intensity. He didn’t have the arsenal; he had the
equalizer – 126-pound Earnie Shavers. Pac’s prayer
was a left hand. And every heart was stopped
waiting for him to do it again. Mexicans in fear;
Filipinos in hope. One lapse in Marquez’s
concentration and the first round would be
re-visited. And, Marquez had to do that after
surviving a train wreck.
 There
was no need at the final bell for Michael Buffer to
say, “let’s hear it for these two warriors!” Over
the ear-shattering sound, you could make out the
overlapping drum of “Marquez! Marquez! Pacquoa!
Pacquiao! “ We held our breath while the cards were
tallied. Nations waited to rejoice, and fighters
and their camps to hear what months of sacrifice and
pain-beyond-endurance had earned them.
A raucous cheer
went up from the Pacquiao side when judge John
Stewart’s 115-110 was read for him. Joy…and relief,
came from the Marquez side when Guy Jutras’ 115-110
was read for him. From the brink of annihilation,
now Marquez had a real chance.
There was stunned
silence, as if all the air was sucked out of the
building, when Burt Clements’ 113-113 draw was
announced. No boos, or thrown beer bottles, just
total deflation for the fighters, their camps and
the crowd. It just wouldn’t sink in. All the
explosions ended with a whimper. It wasn’t unjust…
just unthinkable.
But there was no
riot, and volatile ethnic rivalries have combusted
over less. Even the most partial had to have
grudging respect for the other side. There was
trash talking on both sides by the soccer-hooligan
element leading up to the match, but Pacquiao and
Marquez remained above it.
On Fightworld’s
card, Pac won it by the narrowest shade, 114-113.
The 10-6 round made the difference. It was hard to
erase the vision of Marquez laying in ruin in the
wake of Pac’s first-round attack, in spite of
Marquez’s miraculous recovery, flawless skills and
drawing-board tactics.
After the
decision, Roach looked for Mark Ratner, the Head of
the Nevada State Boxing Commission, to lodge a
formal complaint about Bert Clement’s 10-7 scoring
of the first round. If it was scored properly – 10-6
– Pacquiao would not only be “The Peoples’ Champion,
but he’d leave the arena with the WBA and IBF belts.
Subsequent to the
fight, I’ve learned that 10-6 is discretionary, so
any protest will probably come to naught, but it
will certainly play into the buildup for a lucrative
return. Between mending injuries and other
commitments, Bob Arum doesn’t see it happening
before October or November.
Arum and Murad
Muhammad are to be congratulated for putting aside
personal differences and having the vision to make
this dream match a reality at affordable
prices.
***
Cotto-N’Dou: Cotto Passes Test
If you were
casting for a boxing champion, you’d pick Miguel
Cotto. He has the dark, brooding good looks and
thick black hair of a ‘40’s crooner on an 8x10
glossy. An anti-hero who curries no favor with the
media. Like Ken Griffey, jr., he’s all effortless
grace that belies homerun power. The 23-year-old
Puerto Rican (19-0, 16 KO’s) doesn’t look on the way
up; he looks there. He glides – almost removed -- in
and around the press at a pre-fight lunch for his
12-round semi-windup with Lovemore N’Dou the way he
moves around the ring marking his territory like a
predator.
 Cotto
was led into the arena by Juan Ramon Cruz, a Puerto
Rican lightweight also on the card, looking as gaunt
as an ultra marathoner, waving the Commonwealth’s
flag and carrying Cotto’s WBC International Super
Lightweight belt. Cotto looked like an ad for a sun
bronzer; the overhead lights accenting his high
cheekbones as he bounced lightly up and down in his
corner on the balls of his feet. His hair in tight
cornrows that must have taken the better part of the
afternoon to do.
Lovemore N’Dou
couldn’t be more inappropriately named. It would
lull one into a false sense of security. This was
no flower child. When he stripped at the weigh-in,
he looked like a 140-pound sculpture of Marvin
Hagler – every inch chiseled. Even his face had
sinew, and he fought that way. This was no obscure
African name, by way of Australia, for Cotto to
fatten his resume on the way to a serious world
title. This was a determined, well-conditioned,
supremely confident, fearless man who’d proved
against Sharmba Mitchell that he was world-class --
not a gatekeeper. A real test.
Cotto, from the
opening bell, didn’t set the pace, he set the
distance and tempo, choosing when and where he
fought, moving all around the ring, left and right,
without any sense of urgency or expression –
unhurried -- like a hitman waiting for just the
right moment to make a kill. But the mark wasn’t
cooperating; N’Dou was rushing at him and didn’t
stop rushing. Cotto remained impassive and glided
left and right, with N’Dou throwing rocks at him
like a protester at a rally. Many of N’Dou’s
downward sledgehammers hit arms and shoulders and
the top of Cotto’s head… and he never stopped
swinging and chasing.
Cotto couldn’t
showcase his picture combinations. He was pressured
to throw fewer of them, but refused to be goaded by
N’Dou or the crowd into breaking his rhythm or
picking up his offense. . He never rushed – always
deliberate, like Jimmy Brown getting up after a gang
tackle.
 When
Cotto’s combos landed, they were textbook and
surgical, but rarely with full extension. The few
that N’Dou took, even flush, he shook off and
continued to charge Cotto, clubbing over and over.
Cotto was fending off a man wielding a hammer, and
he never tired of swinging it. The sports car was
being dented but showed no sign of turning into a
Junker.
 Cotto
was like a superb fencer against a fanatic with a
saber. When the final bell sounded, Cotto had
plenty of concussion damage, certainly to his
aplomb. His ascension to a world title was scripted
to look like Superman against mortals. Against
N’Dou, Cotto escaped with a win. Though it was
unanimous on all cards: 117-111, 115-113, 116-112,
this reporter thought it was much closer. N’Dou
kept banging and hitting and making contact, and he
should have gotten credit for that.
N’dou was like
everybody else on the card, a gentleman and a
sportsman (not a snarling thug in the bunch) but as
he headed back to his dressing room with his
handlers, accepting the well wishes from all that
reached out to him, he had to be thinking “What
must I do get a win in the U.S.?” He certainly
didn’t back off from the fighter nobody wanted to
touch.
Cotto has to know
in his heart how close he came to being overrun and
upset. Does he have superior skills? Yes. But, on
the night of May 8, did Lovemore do more? Yes, in
my opinion. It should be a wake-up call for Cotto.
***
Bouts off TV
Al KO’s Robinson
Super
welterweight, Hasan Al (25-5-0 15 KO’s) of Turkey
was relentless against Quandray Robinson (14-7, 10
KO’s) of Portland Oregon in a scheduled eight. Al
plodded forward from the opening bell and looked
like he was shaking off some rust. His punches were
slow and falling short, and he was a step or two
away from being in punching room. Al closed the
distance with a range finder jab and followed with
arm punches, but he was making contact to the body.
 In
the second round, Al picked up his work rate and
landed an overhand right and floored Robinson for an
eight count. Robinson got on his horse and
survived the round, but his legs were unsteady under
him
Robinson tried
sticking and moving in the third and loading up with
one or two big punches and trying to get out of
Dodge. And it was working for about half the
round. But his punches got wider and wider and more
desperate as he ran out of steam, and Al pressed
with draining flurries of body punches. As the round
closed, Al caught Robinson with another right hand,
knocking his mouthpiece loose.
Robinson, though
he was on empty, continued to circle and double up
on his jab and change direction and jump in with a
left-hook-uppercut from the floor – a Hail Mary, to
pull the fight out or slow Al. But Robinson got
trapped on the ropes, and furiously trying to fight
his way out, Robinson was hit with another overhand
right that he never saw and was out before he
slumped to the canvas.
 The
referee ruled it over immediately at 2:19 of round
six.
Robinson, in
embarrassment, had a Zab Judah moment: He railed at
the referee that he was OK; he was ready fight. But
as he continued and his head cleared, to make his
point, he did a back flip: “See!” And when
that gained him nothing, he threw his mouthpiece
into the crowd.
Al is a
European-style fighter – nothing fancy, tough as a
cob, with a strong body attack, much in the mold of
the fighter he admired and now manages him, Mustapha
Hamsho. If Al can shake the cobwebs of inactivity
loose, with the help of veteran trainer Al Certo,
who came out of retirement after he liked what he
saw in the gym, Al should be a tough proposition for
anybody.
***
Gonzalez-Cruz: 3rd Rd NC
In the opening
six-round prelim that started at 4:30 P.M, with few
people in the spacious MGM Grand Arena, while Jim
Lampley went over his cue cards at ringside, making
jokes with the HBO crew tuning the color bars on the
monitors, Adam “Little Man” Gonzalez (10-10, 5 KO’s)
from Long Beach, California fought Juan Ramon Cruz
(9-1-1, 6 KO’s) of Puerto Rico.
Though Cruz was
only an inch taller at 5’7”, because of his much
longer arms and pared-to-the-bone appearance, his
edge in height looked more pronounced. If he
weren’t a fighter in peak shape, you’d have offered
him a meal. Cruz was the stalker, with well-drilled
basics but slower of hand and foot than Gonzalez.
Cruz kept his hands high and threw six-punch
combinations, but Gonzalez kept catching him with
left hooks in the first round, and his nose was
bleeding at the bell.
 Gonzalez
was beating Cruz to the punch consistently, and
though Cruz threw many more, Gonzalez would not
stand still long enough to be hit. Cruz, very
orthodox and straight up, picked up the pace with
foot pressure and inside uppercuts for the remainder
of round two.
Both fighters dug
in and exchanged in the third, to the cheers of the
few in the crowd. Whenever Gonzalez would throw,
Cruz would cover up until he was done before firing
back.
Backing out of
some infighting, there was a clash of heads and
Gonzalez’s right eye was cut. 
Referee Kenny Bayless inspected it and let him
continue. After seeing the blood, Cruz forced the
action. Bayless called time again to look at
Gonzalez’s eye and took him to the ropes for the
doctor’s opinion. The doctor ruled the cut was too
bad to continue, and it was stopped at 1:46 of the
third as a result of an accidental head butt. It
goes in the books as an NC (no contest); it didn’t
go four
rounds.
***
Nolasco Flattens Quintero
 In
the most dramatic and unexpected one-punch knockout
of the night, a fighter with a so-so record and no
demonstrable punching power flattened an undefeated
fighter, who must have looked at his record, and
thought: “a walk in the park.”
And that’s just
the way Lightweight Arturo Quintero (10-0,6 KO’s) of
Michoacan, Mexico, fought Johnny Nolasco (11-3-3, 4
KO’s) of Phoenix, Arizona, as if he was just going
to walk through him and make a statement on this
important card.
From the moment
the bell rang for the first round, Quintero advanced
as if he had nobody in front of him, intent on
throwing short, well-leveraged combinations --
finishing with a tight left hook. Whenever Nolasco
threw a jab, he dropped his right and stuck his head
straight up. Made to order for Quintero’s left hook
at the end of a combination. So, it looked very
quickly like Nolasco would be added to Quintero’s KO
list.
 Quintero
looked more embarrassed than hurt when he walked
into a left-hook from the safety-first fighter and
found himself on the canvas. He was up immediately
as if he hadn’t been hit at all, and renewed his
advance.
In round two,
Quintero began chopping the retreating Nolasco down
with body shots. But suddenly Nolasco would whirl
with a salvo to keep Quintero off. They didn’t look
like knockout punches; it was all off his back
foot…but that’s what they said about Johansson when
he fought Patterson the first time.
The pattern was
set: the consistent, harder punching Quintero was
doing more than enough to win the rounds and inching
close enough to trap and finish Nolasco. The few
solid punches Nolasco landed, Quintero treated as
little more than a nuisance. Nolasco’s swings
seemed more fearsome than his power.
In the sixth
round, Nolasco continued to dart in and out, but he
was slowing from wasted motion and nervous energy.
Quintero cut off his retreat against the ropes and
they exchanged. Nolasco windmilled furiously to
escape. A right pole axed Quintero into the canvas
face first. Referee Kenny Bayless waved it “over”
without bothering to count.
While the doctor
attended to Quintero, “Oohs!” and “Aahs! came from
the crowd when they repeated Nolasco’s sleep
producer over and over again on the JumboTron.
***
Echols UD’s Porter
in Walkout
The walkout
ten-round middleweight bout between Antwun “Kid
Dynamite” Echols (30-5-1, 28 KO’s) and Ross “The
Boss” Porter (26-8-2, 17 KO’s) must have been planed
not to embarrass either fighter. Most of the crowd
was filtering out after the main-go, and the press
headed for the Pacquaio-Marquez post-fight press
conference in the upper deck. So, there was little
chance anybody would see a poor performance
Climbing to the
upper deck slowly, I continued to watch. The stocky
Porter moved in the image of a portside Jersey Joe
Walcott -- a cutie, a veteran shooting
unintelligible trash through his mouthpiece at
Echols that only ringsiders could make out.
Echols did
everything I remember that made him a dreaded right
hand puncher, except he looked like he was doing it
under water. It was somebody doing an imitation of
Echols. By the time I reached the press-conference
curtain, the match had settled in to the perfect
walkout bout: not a hint of excitement to delay
anybody existing.
In the press
conference, while a bruised and puffed Pacquiao and
Marquez sat at the podium fielding questions, I
could hear the echo in the near-empty arena of
Michael Buffer confirming that all three judges felt
that Echols did enough to get a unanimous decision.
But at 30, if Echols is going to return to the form
that almost finished Hopkins, he’s got to
re-dedicate himself. He can’t do it on his
reputation, or it’s one walk out bout after another,
until there are no more.
***
In the post-fight
press conference, when Marquez was asked to explain
what happened to him in the first round. He cleared
up the mystery: “I was hit with good punch.” To the
point and direct. Neither fighter alibied his
performance and gave props to the other
When Pacquiao was
asked why he couldn’t finish Marquez after the first
round, he said he hurt his left hand, and in
pivoting, raised huge blisters on the big toe of his
right foot -- which prompted the reporters to ask to
see them. Pac’s left hand was twice the size.
Shapeless knuckles and fingers looked like they were
lost in a wad of dough. When he peeled his sock,
the reporters converged as if it was a nude shot of
Angelina Jolie. There were angry blood blisters so
big they couldn’t possibly have gotten there unless
he’d tried to stop a speeding car on the freeway by
dragging his bare foot.
One indignant
Filipino, at the top of his voice, addressed Murad
at the podium without a question but an ax to grind,
and implied – like he was trying foment a lynch mob
-- there was something shady about the promotion --
without saying what -- and asked for Murad and Arum
to step aside for the return match. Murad patiently
waited for him to finish and showed remarkable
restraint: “I won’t dignify that with a response,”
he said, evenly, looking at the man over his
glasses, and moved on.
It was a wonderful
round-the-clock rollercoaster ride in the very
surreal world of The Strip from Wednesday to
Saturday for photographer Jan Sanders and myself,
meeting and talking with some of you from the site,
doing interviews and following up every story (which
all will be put up on Fightworld.us) But the live
experience in that arena exceeded all expectations
and the awe factor of seeing the Empire State
Building and the Eiffel Tower standing next to the
Pyramids.
More Joe Rein writings at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~joerein/ or
http://www.fightworld.us/garfields/garfields.php
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