Pacquiao-Marquez III: Inside the Rivalry

By Thomas Hauser

Special to TopRank.com

Editor’s Note: This is the first article in a series by Hauser examining the Nov 12 welterweight title fight between champ Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez.

Great rivalries elevate their participants and link them forever in the pages of history. Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez are great rivals.

Neither man was pre-packaged and handed a road-map to stardom. Pacquiao turned pro at age sixteen and fought his first 23 fights in the Philippines. Marquez debuted in Mexico City at age nineteen and was disqualified in round one of his first pro fight.

Since then, Pacquiao has risen to global super-star status. Marquez will be a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee when his time comes. They’ve met in the ring twice in classic fights that were everything boxing should be. On November 12th, they’ll meet again at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

There’s no way that Pacquiao-Marquez III can be as good as its predecessors.

Or is there?

Pacquiao-Marquez I (contested on May 8, 2004) was a non-stop action fight with a dramatic ebb and flow. Midway through round one, Pacquiao put Marquez on the canvas with a straight lefthand. Two more knockdowns followed, each one leaving Marquez more dazed than the one before. But Marquez did more than survive. Fighting for eleven-and-a-half rounds with blood streaming from his nose, he worked his way back into the fight and left the ring with a much-deserved draw.

Pacquiao-Marquez II (on March 15, 2008) featured more non-stop action from beginning to end. In round three, a straight lefthand put Marquez down. He rose and fired back. By the middle rounds, each man was badly cut on the right eyelid with blood dripping into his eye. Round eight was Marquez’s best of the night. He hurt Pacquiao with body shots and scored repeatedly to the head. Manny had the look of a beaten fighter. “I’m really hurt in that round,” he acknowledged afterward. But Pacquiao fought his way back into the fight and won a split-decision by a single point.

Marquez thinks that he should have been awarded the decision in both fights. There are knowledgeable observers who agree with him. Everyone agrees that the two men battled on even terms.

Six judges scored twenty-four rounds of boxing betweeen Pacquiao and Marquez. Their composite score gives Pacquiao a 679-to-678 edge in points and Marquez a 41-to-31 lead in rounds.

Rounds 25 through 36 of Pacquiao-Marquez are now at hand.

The conventional wisdom is that Pacquiao has gotten bigger, stronger, and more skilled over the past three years, while Marquez has gotten older and slower. Juan Manuel is now 38 years old. That’s old for a fighter; particularly one who fights the way he fights. Pacquiao will be 33 in December.

Their first two fights were contested at contract weights of 126 and 130 pounds. This one is at 144. Pacquiao is used to the 144-pound weight. It’s natural for him at this stage of his career. Marquez is a natural lightweight. His one foray into the higher weight classes was against Floyd Mayweather Jr, when he weighed in at 142 pounds and was never in the fight.

Also, Pacquiao is a much smarter fighter now than he was before. He has been taught by Freddie Roach . . . and by Marquez.

Let’s assume for the moment that Marquez “figured out” Pacquiao after round one of their first encounter. The question now is whether, even with that knowledge, he can deal with Manny’s increased firepower and improved weapons delivery system.

Three-and-a-half years is a long time in boxing. Seven-and-a-half years is longer. Pacquiao-Marquez I and II are ancient history.

Alex Ariza (Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach) elaborates on that theme, saying, “Manny is going to knock Marquez out. He’s a whole different fighter now from what he was then. Freddie gave him the right game plan for those first two fights, but Manny wasn’t physically prepared to execute it. I started working with him after that. Manny will be prepared physically this time and his technical skills are better. He and Marquez are in different leagues now.”

“I know there have been doubts over the last two fights,” Pacquiao said at the September 3rd kick-off press conference in Manila. “There have been debates on who won them. This fight should end all doubts. This fight should end all debates.”

In sum, Pacquiao wants to close the books on his rivalry with Marquez and put to rest any doubt regarding his ring supremacy. His fans are expecting a coronation. But Juan Manuel has a different ending in mind.

For every great fighter, there’s always that one opponent who poses particularly formidable obstacles no matter what logic says. The question that gives Pacquiao-Marquez III its buzz is, “Does Marquez have Pacquiao’s number?”

A fighter studies his opponent on tape and, sometimes, live from a ringside seat. But when they get in the ring to face each other, the opponent’s speed and power can be very different from what the fighter thinks they’ll be. Marquez knows that firsthand from having fought Pacquiao twice. Round one of Pacquiao-Marquez I was a shock to him. Subsequent to that, he made adjustments.

Counterpunching is Marquez’s greatest technical strength, and it served him well in his previous fights against Pacquiao. He made Manny pay for his mistakes and, at times, took him to school.

“When you let your hands go, you leave yourself open,” Freddie Roach acknowledges. “When you exchange and throw punches like Manny does, you put yourself in harm’s way.”

Emanuel Steward puts the matter in perspective, saying, “Pacquiao is bigger and stronger now than he was before, so there will be a big difference in natural strength. Also, Marquez has slowed down a bit and his reflexes aren’t what they used to be.”

“But as good as Pacquiao is,” Steward continues, “he makes mistakes. And he gambles in the ring. That means he’s more likely to do damage, but he’s also more likely to get hit. And Marquez has the skills to take advantage of Pacquiao’s mistakes better than anyone that Pacquiao has ever fought. Marquez has great balance and great positioning. He can take that half step to the side and make an opponent miss. He can change his style on the spur of the moment and alter the flow of a fight as seamlessly as any fighter I know. And Marquez will be sky high for this fight. He’ll come into the ring emotionally charged because believes that he beat Pacquiao twice. I think Pacquiao wins, but it won’t be easy. I would not take Marquez lightly.”

So let’s end with a cautionary tale about the third fight in another famous boxing trilogy; a fight that took place in the Philippines three years before Manny Pacquiao was born.

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier split their first two encounters. Then they met in Manila for Ali-Frazier III. Ferdie Pacheco (who was Ali’s cutman and physician) later recalled, “You have to understand the premise behind that fight. The first fight was life and death, and Frazier won. Second fight; Ali figures him out. Then Ali beats Foreman, and Frazier’s sun sets. And I don’t care what anyone says now; all of us thought that Joe Frazier was shot. We all thought that this was going to be an easy fight. Ali comes out, dances around, and knocks him out in eight or nine rounds. That’s what we figured. And you know what happened in that fight. Ali took a beating like you’d never believe anyone could take. When he said afterward that it was the closest thing he’d ever known to death — let me tell you something; if dying is that hard, I’d hate to see it coming.”

The outcome of Pacquiao-Marquez III is by no means certain.

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at [email protected]. His most recent book (Winks and Daggers: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing) was published recently by the University of Arkansas Press.