LAS VEGAS — So what did Manny Pacquiao achieve on Saturday night beyond winning his seventh title in seven different weight classes to catapult himself to a place where no fighter had ever gone?
He brought boxing back into the newspapers, back onto the television and back into an unbroken chain of conversations across America from its office water coolers and its neighborhood saloons.
Yankee Stadium and the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium are now talking about outdoor championship fights with guess who as the magnet that will pack them in.
The face of all of boxing is indelibly stamped with that of Manny Pacquiao today. And if you try to sketch-in the face of the man who will become the other half of the equation that could bring the sport — and the crowds — and the money back to a prominence that used to be trumpeted by names like Ali, Tyson and Sugar Ray Robinson, it takes on the image of Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Together they could restore the kind of magic and drama that just a week ago nobody thought was possible. They could be the twin genies of Ali and Frazier and the rivalry that will never fade into obscurity.
Manny Pacquiao is the Merlin who set up this situation by unleashing the final ingredient into a night filled with Filipino and Puerto Rican flag-waving, roars that shook down thunder from the very rafters of the building and with a final coda of agreement among both sets of highly partisan groups that on this night they had seen the very best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet and his name is Manny Pacquiao.
There had been a thought among many (not including the town’s linemakers who had Manny as a powerful 3-1 favorite) that perhaps Manny had let his reach exceed his grasp by agreeing to fight a bigger and, most thought, stronger opponent as his litmus.
But Miguel Cotto never had a chance.
So this is the way the dream ended for Miguel Cotto on Saturday night. From the fifth round on, he was able to throw fewer than 10 power punches per round. That’s like trying to stop a swarm of killer bees with a feather duster. He was trying to survive on legs that had begun to look like twin pillars of wet spaghetti. And it kept on getting more and more hopeless. He was all alone on a rapidly melting ice floe while the cuts that looked like small tributaries at the beginning of round 12 had turned part of his face into a crimson mask.
And through those final seconds, from every corner of the MGM Grand Arena, a one-word chant told the entire story:
‘‘Maanny..MaannyÂ…Maanny.’’
Back in the Philippines, it was would have translated into a single Tagalog phrase:
‘‘Manny, mabuhay ka’’ (Long live, Manny Pacquiao)
Here in Gomorrah-by-the-Desert, it was a tribute to the oldest of gambler’s adages:
‘‘The race (or fight) may not always go to the army with the most guns — but that sure as hell is the way to bet.’’
This wasn’t just a great welterweight fight here at the Grand Garden. What it was, was a coronation. Manny Pacquiao morphed from Mighty Mouse into Godzilla on the strength of a single, dramatic evening. In a field of contenders and pretenders, he now shines above them all like the Hope Diamond atop a landfill of broken cheap wine bottles.
The Star-Ledger card gave Cotto only two of the 11 rounds preceding the stoppage. When Kenny Bayless, the referee, stepped in to stop it 55 seconds into the 12th round, it was an act of mercy, certifying reality. Pacquiao floored Cotto twice. He took away his legs. He took away his will. He neutralized every weapon that Cotto had brought to the battle. He was equally deadly with either hand.
And he exhibited the kind of domination over Cotto that reaffirmed a mantra that thousands of trainers know is a rock solid proposition:
Speed will always defeat power if the speed is consistent.
Pacquiao was a whirlwind that turned the underdog’s first-round hope into pure disaster. The plan had been repeated by Freddie Roach, Manny’s trainer, until it sounded like a boxing catechism:
‘‘Stay off the ropes. Don’t let your back touch them. Make this a dead-center of the ring fight and it will be easy.’’
In the very first round Manny let it happen. It was the only time all night. But there he was back on the ropes and Cotto was on him. He had driven Pacquiao there with his jab, which had been surprising effective. He threw the hook. Manny slipped it and soon after the bell rang.
Cotto had won the round. But the near miss had jarred Pacquiao’s memory and that memory had won him the fight.
Manny had never again come even close to ceding the geography of the ring. It became his territorial imperative. With no place left him from which to counter punch (Cotto’s strength), Pacquiao took advantage of every angle, took advantage of his spectacular hand speed and took advantage, well, of Miguel Cotto.
He dropped him in the third round and again in the fourth. The first cut began to leak midway through the scheduled 12-rounder. In Cotto’s corner, Joe Chavez, his cut man, began to earn his salary. By the ninth round, everyone in the joint knew the fight was over. In the 11th, Cotto began to run and Pacquiao picked him off again and again at his leisure.
At the start of the 12th, a single right hand opened the bigger of the two cuts. Bayless did not wait.
He jumped in and put his arms around Cotto and ended it — much to both corners’ relief.
It was a for Pacquiao a declaration and a challenge.
The ball is in Floyd Mayweather’s court now.
Source: nj.com
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Manny Pacquiao puts Miguel Cotto to the canvas in the 3rd round
(Source: http://www.doghouseboxing.com/Media/ReM_Manny_Pacquiao_Cotto5_G.jpg)
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