The most devastating punch the great Juan Manuel Marquez ever threw was also the punch that ended his feud with Manny Pacquiao so conclusively that Pacquiao was simply never the same again.
When the Filipino was left lifeless, face down on the canvas at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, there was briefly a concern far greater than the fact that he had suffered successive defeats for the first time.
The fight that had been chosen in part to rekindle interest in the overdue superfight with Floyd Mayweather had become one that had left him much more at risk. After also losing a controversial split decision to Timothy Bradley, Pacquiao could no longer realistically claim to deserve parity with Mayweather, and the illusion that theirs would prove the most absorbing and competitive of fights was shattered from almost as convincingly as Marquez threw the explosive punch. which landed on Pacquiao’s jaw.
In his remarkable heyday, Pacquiao, known mostly for his success against Mexican-born fighters, had recorded two victories over Marco Antonio Barrera, two over Erik Morales, one over Oscar De La Hoya, one over Antonio Margarito, and two that were increasingly controversial over Marquez – perhaps then his best opponent of all.
In the first, at the same venue in May 2004 at featherweight after his first loss to Barrera, Marquez recovered so well from three knockdowns inside the first round that he fired back to force the three ringside judges to score a draw. The most cultured, intelligent and aggressive counter-puncher had learned to read, and ultimately deny, his then unorthodox opponent, and to the extent that there were even observers who felt he had deserved to win.
When they fought for the second time, at Vegas’ Mandalay Bay in March 2008 at super featherweight, Pacquiao was once again the favorite having evolved as a fighter – having beaten Barrera for the second time and beaten Morales twice. – even if he was not yet a holder. transcend his sport. Another damaging start for Marquez in which he suffered a third-round knockdown and a significant cut was followed by another brilliant counter-punching display in which he started reading the improved Pacquiao again, and he deserved it. ultimately more than his narrow split-defeat decision.
The once raw Pacquiao, under Freddie Roach, then widely recognized as the best trainer in the world, had repeatedly improved – physically and technically – as a fighter between those two fights. After the second, he launched a run as impressive as any fighter in history – as a naturally smaller fighter moving up to lightweight to stop David Diaz, super lightweight to stop Ricky Hatton, welterweight to stop De La Hoya and Miguel Cotto before edging out Joshua Clottey and Shane Mosley, and finally light middleweight to beat Margarito convincingly in 12 rounds.
After fighting at 130 pounds against Marquez, he had repeatedly beaten world-class, and in some cases elite, opposition in a weight division as heavy as 154 pounds. In doing so, the win over De La Hoya was one that introduced him to a wider audience; the one that followed Hatton was his most destructive, and that of Cotto his most impressive of all – he had also proved himself a rival, and for some observers Mayweather was surpassed as the best fighter in the world.
When, after beating Mosley, he was paired with Marquez again, in November 2011, he was widely considered not only to have improved to such an extent technically that even naturally taller decorated opponents had proven unable to contain it, but for having matured so physically. that their third fight, at welterweight, was taking place at a weight that Marquez had already demonstrated he shouldn’t fight at. It was September 2009 when Marquez first moved up to welterweight, to fight Mayweather, and when he looked sluggish and, by his standards, sluggish in the process of a one-sided loss.
What instead unfolded against the significantly more polished Pacquiao at the MGM Grand was his simplest fight, tactically, of the four they were scheduled to have. Roach had refined the Filipino to such a degree that he had become more effective than ever imagined against opponents with the qualities of Hatton and Cotto, and yet against the backdrop of Marquez’s near unrivaled boxing IQ he had become far more predictable. , and insofar as when Pacquiao got a majority decision, it was widely seen as the most unfair scorecard of the three.
Even with the broad sense of unfairness at those scorecards, and the equally controversial loss, by Bradley, that followed, similar logic dictated that Pacquiao was once again rightly the favorite for their fourth of four fights. and that the Filipino, then 33, would win without controversy to finally silence his biggest rival.
Each of their fights had been of the highest quality and level of entertainment, and even after the first saw Marquez survive three first-round knockdowns, their most dramatic fight was also the last of four.
Fighting with an intensity not seen since the victory over Cotto in 2009, Pacquiao, as stung by the sense of injustice of the loss to Bradley as he was by suggestions that he had been lucky against Marquez and the subsequent taunts from the Mexican, forced a pace and punitive nature of the fight which, for the first time since the knockdown Marquez suffered in their second fight, seemed to have placed the Mexican at risk of being stopped.
Instead, with Pacquiao sensing some vulnerability in the 39-year-old Marquez towards the conclusion of round six and responding by continuing to move forward, Marquez countered him with a right hand that was as perfectly timed as it was accurate, dropping Pacquiao from so conclusively that Marquez instantly secured his supreme victory, ensuring that on the evening of December 8, 2012, he truly sent shockwaves through their sport.
“I knew I could get knocked out anytime, when he was coming at me in those last three rounds,” said Marquez, then significantly more convincing at welterweight, and having also knocked down Pacquiao in the third round and recovered from a reversal in the fifth.
“But I threw the perfect punch.”
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