My scorecard: 1: Pacquiao 10-9. Close round. Pacquiao edged it. Landed a few jabs, nothing spectacular or dangerous. Marquez landed a few body shots and jabs himself. Not much to separate them.
2: Marquez 10-9. Easy Marquez round. He landed numerous power punches and has begun to stifle Pacquiao’s efforts. Pacquiao landed with nothing significant and his 50 or so thrown punches mostly hit thin air.
3: Marquez 10-9. Pretty tight but not that tight. I can already see how Compubox have got their figures wrong. I counted 10 effective punches by Marquez compared to 8 by Pacquiao (half of which were in the last minute). Pacquiao is using up energy jumping in and out throwing punches into thin air while Marquez is governing what Pacquiao does by moving intelligently and countering with, as i said previously, at least 10 effective punches. It’s important not to count air shots. A thrown punch simply means “a punch thrown into thin air”. What counts is the % of punches which connect.
4: Marquez 10-9. Good round for Marquez. I can see how HBO might have persuaded fans to call it a Pacquiao round. According to Compubox, Pacquiao landed 15 to Marquez’ 12. I counted 13 good punches landed by Marquez compared to just 9 by Pacquiao. I don’t know what Compubox considers “landed” but a punch which lands over in Greenland isn’t a landed shot in my book. Anyway, stuff what Compubox says.
5: Marquez 10-9. Easy round for Marquez. I counted 20 EFFECTIVE punches landed by Marquez. Pacquiao landed just 9 effective punches. I don’t pay any attention to the whole jabs landed/thrown, power punches landed/thrown nonsense. I only take that into account if i’m watching someone like Wladimir Klitschko who lives for the jab. Otherwise i think it’s far easier to score by saying EFFECTIVE or NON-EFFECTIVE punching. Marquez landed 20 effective punches, most of which were power punches. Compubox says he landed 12. This is because whoever was in charge of Compubox that evening doesn’t know how to count. This is why Compubox shouldn’t be taken seriously when judging a fight.
6: Pacquiao 10-9. Closest round so far. I had to watch this twice. I gave them both about the same amount of effective punches each. But i gave the round to Pacquiao for more aggression, slightly more punches thrown and generally all round better display. Compubox numbers were all over the place though. They MUST be counting air punches for Pacquiao and i literally have no idea what they’re counting for Marquez. Their system is flawed.
7: Marquez 10-9. Very close round which i watched 3 times (mainly to make heads or tails of the RIDICULOUS Compubox stats) but i feel Marquez won it fairly. He landed the best punch of the fight so far in the first minute, a big right hook followed up with a couple of body shots. Compubox is truly showing its incompetence here. I am sitting here with as much time on my hands as possible and the chance to replay the round over again. I counted 9 effective punches landed by Pacquiao to 11 landed by Marquez. They counted 21 punches to 12. 21 punches?
? They MUST be off their heads on crack! They just MUST be. Surprisingly even HBO gave the round to Marquez despite their beloved Compubox scoring air punches for Pacquiao.
8: Marquez 10-9. Easy round for Marquez. I watched the round twice. First time to count punch stats (Marquez landed 12 effective punches to Pacquiao’s 9) and second time to watch the fight and their displays. Marquez gave Pacquiao a boxing lesson this round. Pacquiao didn’t even get into the round until the last 40 seconds. It shows you how misleading punch stats can be. Compubox and myself both had similar punch stats which didn’t separate the fighters much. But the actual display by Marquez was far superior to that of Pacquiao. Sometimes it’s best to just watch the action. Surprise surprise Harold Lederman gave the round to Manny Pacquiao though. That must be worst round score of the year.
9: Pacquiao 10-9. I counted around 20 punches each but was hard to tell as punches were flying in all over the place. It was a very close round which could have gone either way. I gave it to Pacquiao as he landed and threw a few more punches and combos than Marquez i felt. I actually think some of Marquez’ shots were slightly heavier but Pacquiao is coming back into the fight it seems.
10: Marquez 10-9. Comfortable round for Marquez. I watched the round twice: First time to count punches, second time to watch the action. I counted 20 effective punches to Marquez compared to 13 for Pacquiao. No surprise then that Compubox counted just 13 for Marquez to 18 for Pacquiao. Strange. Either i am blind or Compubox figures are about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.
11: Pacquiao 10-9. Close round but definitely one i felt Pacquiao won. He was the busier fighter, landed a few combos and for the first time i counted the same amount of punches landed as Compubox! First for everything. 18-13 punches in favour of Pacquiao. As the round ends i feel as though Pacquiao has left this too late. As does Freddie Roach it would seem who tells his fighter: “Put this guy on his ass for me, okay?!”.
12: Pacquiao 10-9. Definite Pacquiao round. He landed about as many punches as he did in round 11 and finished the fight strong. Marquez didn’t go out to win the final round, whereas Pacquiao did.
FINAL SCORE: Marquez 115-113 Pacquiao My Conclusion: I originally scored the fight 117-112 to Marquez. I scored the first round a draw and i gave Marquez rounds 6 and 12. I've since changed my mind and gave Pacquiao rounds 1, 6 and 12 but i gave Marquez round 10. Overall, i can SEE why people might have said Pacquiao won a close fight although i disagree with them.
What i saw was a fight where the challenger, Marquez, counter-punched the champion effectively, landed the bigger and more frequent power punches and sat back and controlled most of what Pacquiao did. Pacquiao's aggression wasn't effective for the most part and i would call it his worst display in many years, a fact which i think we can give Marquez credit for.
Overall, i can see how somebody might have scored the fight a draw but i think Marquez can feel hard done by. Again, he outboxed Pacquiao for most of 36 minutes and came away the loser.
Perhaps we need to see a change to round scoring to account for how a boxer can dominate certain rounds but lose because of the close rounds.
? They MUST be off their heads on crack! They just MUST be. Surprisingly even HBO gave the round to Marquez despite their beloved Compubox scoring air punches for Pacquiao.