Manny Pacquiao's Blog, Part I

Photo courtesy of HBO.

The first fight with Juan Manuel Márquez was very exciting.  Everyone was saying that it was a matchup between the two best featherweights and that was contagious to me.  I trained very hard with Freddie Roach and I was really looking forward to it.

After I knocked Márquez down for third time in the first round and I headed back to the corner I was thinking “It’s over.  If I throw a few more left hands I’ve got him and I can end this in the second round.”  Freddie was telling me the same thing.

So I threw more lefts at Márquez but the problem was I didn’t land them this time.  I might have been a little impatient trying to end the fight and looking back now those misses gave him time to recuperate a bit and adjust his game plan against me. 

I was really surprised at how hard Márquez fought and got himself back into the fight.  That really impressed me.  But better than that, we gave the fans a great fight to watch.

Toward the latter rounds, because I was wearing socks that were very thin, I had developed blisters on my feet making it very difficult for me to move as effectively as I had during the earlier rounds.  I had to fight more flatfooted than we had trained.  After the fight, when I took my boots off, my socks were worn through and they were very bloody.

Going into the last two rounds of the fight, Freddie told me I had to really pick it up and take the last two rounds to “seal the deal,” which I did.  No question I won those last two rounds and I hurt him in the 12^th round when he came out in a southpaw stance and I was able to land some very hard shots.  I remember him looking unsteady after I hit him.

It was called a Draw but if the one judge had correctly scored the first round 10–6 [for the three knockdowns] instead of 10-7, I would have won the decision. But then again, maybe we wouldn’t have had the great fights together that followed if he had? 

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HBO’s Emmy®-Award-winning all-access series “24/7” premieres an all-new edition when “24/7 Pacquiao/Marquez 4” debuts Saturday, Nov. 17 at 12:15 a.m. ET/PT.  The four-part series will air for three consecutive Saturday nights before the finale airs the night before the welterweight showdown in Las Vegas.

Pacquiao vs. Marquez 4 takes place Saturday, December 8 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and will be produced and distributed live by HBO Pay-Per-View beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/ 6:00 p.m. PT.