Pacquiao hardly scores convincing win

By Al S. Mendoza

 

MANNY Pacquiao won, all right.

But was it really convincing?

Hardly. He won it hands down but not totally significant.

Modesty aside, I also scored the fight 116-110 in Pacquiao’s favor.

A friend of mine seated beside me during the fight said to me in jest:  “Why, all the three judges copied your score.”

The fight was the easiest to score.

Timothy Bradley Jr. hardly connected in the entire 12 rounds but still, I gave him four rounds. Out of pity?  Maybe.

If honesty is the best policy, generosity is also a good policy. Uplifts the spirit.

Pacquiao dominated the fight virtually from beginning to end.

He still had the moves of a young fighter, although slightly a bit slower now.  And not as hard a puncher as he used to be.

Twice he floored Bradley. Twice he didn’t finish Bradley off.

He didn’t fail.  He just didn’t want to send Bradley to dreamland.

Isn’t Bradley Bible-bound alongside Pacquiao?

In the seventh, Bradley fell from getting hit by a left below the ear after first absorbing a right hook.

Pacquiao did not pursue a knockout after Bradley got a standing 8-count.  He merely went through the motions of finishing the round.

Afraid that he might get hit by a lucky punch if he tried mixing it up?

The ghost of a knockout loss from a lucky punch courtesy of Juan Manuel Marquez still haunts him four years after the fact?

Bradley got decked again in the ninth, this time by a harder left to the kisser that sent him tumbling and somersaulting.

After another 8-count, Pacquiao again did not go for the kill.

Same reason?  Scared of Marquez’s phantom punch suddenly materializing in the heat of an exchange?

In the olden days, Pacquiao would turn tiger at the slightest opening, unleashing a rain of punches until his prey has finally crumpled on the floor—limp as an empty sack.

If the years had softened his rock-hard fists, I am not surprised.

The last time he scored a stoppage was in 2009 yet.

And it was not even a knockout victory but rather, a TKO win over Miguel Cotto.

Pacquiao was mercilessly pummeling Cotto with hits to the face when the referee said enough is enough and declared a 12th-round TKO loss for the Puerto Rican.

In the intervening seven years after that, Pacquiao has stopped stopping his foes.

He could only score knockdowns, punctuated by those 6 knockdowns he dealt Chris Algieri before PacMan lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 2, 2015.

After beating Bradley a second time, Pacquiao said he was retiring.

Nobody believed him.  Me, too.

But if he did retire, was it done in a blaze of glory?  Hardly.

Did his win translate into votes for his senatorial bid on May 9?  Hardly, too.

But this I can tell you, fellas:  Should he win next month at the polls, it will be as hard a pill to swallow.

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments