By GREG BISHOP, New York Times
ARLINGTON, Tex. — Another fight, another overwhelmed opponent, another convincing punishment delivered by Manny Pacquiao.
On Saturday night in Cowboys Stadium, Pacquiao defeated Joshua Clottey by unanimous decision to retain his World Boxing Organization welterweight championship. He pummeled Clottey’s ribs and midsection. He dissected and destructed his latest overmatched opponent.
Now, the fight that boxing fans demand looms, larger than ever. Pacquiao continues to dismiss all challengers, except Floyd Mayweather Jr., the fighter who presents perhaps his biggest challenge. Here, Pacquiao essentially won his semifinal, leaving Mayweather, who fights Shane Mosley on May 1, to win his end before negotiations between the sport’s two best boxers can resume.
For the most part, Clottey fought defensively and conservatively, as if unable to summon an attack. In the seventh round, Clottey managed to bruise Pacquiao under his right eye, but Pacquiao remained on the offensive, stalking Clottey, landing body shots, body shots and more body shots.
The question lingered. When would Clottey let his hands go and unleash his superior strength and size? When would he, you know, fight?
Clottey opened up occasionally in the later rounds, but by then, it was too late. By then, Pacquiao had dispatched another challenger. By then, cries for Mayweather-Pacquiao began anew.
The fight began with a surreal premise: an African and a Filipino fighting in Texas, the birthplace of Top Rank Boxing and, fittingly, the Cowboys’ owner, Jerry Jones.
The fighters entered the ring to deafening noise and an electric atmosphere. Clottey danced. Pacquiao stalked into his corner, bowed, prayed, then climbed the ropes, smiling at the masses. He had spent the previous two hours watching N.B.A. basketball on television.
This being football country, the crowd swelled with N.F.L. players, ex-players, coaches, ex-coaches, and even owners. It included Jimmy Johnson, the retired coach, and Woody Johnson, the Jets’ owner, along with a bevy of former Cowboys: Deion Sanders, Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman and Barry Switzer.
The fight started slowly, the fighters feeling each other out. Early on, it was Clottey, the bigger, stronger fighter, who landed the bigger shots. But it was Pacquiao, the skilled technician, who appeared to win most of the early rounds, as Clottey treated each punch as precious, rarely to be thrown.
Clottey managed to slow the pace through the middle rounds, but Pacquiao continued to attack, landing combinations. Through six rounds, Pacquiao appeared ahead, with the outcome still very much in doubt.
Just before noon Saturday, Pacquiao and staff assembled for Mass at the exhibition center adjacent to their hotel. They sang hymns and said prayers and received communion, while fans snapped pictures with their cell phones. Pacquiao worshipped God, while hundreds worshipped him, a surreal yet peaceful moment to conclude a kumbaya-style camp.
The last two months, from training through fight week, unfolded in atypical serenity for Team Pacquiao. The fighter flew some 130 members of his entourage here on a private jet, then spent most nights inside his suite, playing poker and belting his favorite karaoke tunes.
Even Michael Koncz and Alex Ariza, the Pacquiao employees who engaged in a fistfight last training camp, teamed up so Koncz could win a staff weight-loss challenge worth $3,000.
“I’m starting to worry,” Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, said half joking. “I’m going to start something, because this camp has gone too smoothly.”
Normally, Pacquiao thrives amid dysfunction. As the circus around him swelled, he won 11 straight fights, won seven titles in a record seven weight divisions and won the award for fighter of the decade. Roach earned his fourth trainer of the year award this year, another mark reached for the punishing pair.
Pacquiao appeared more entranced by Cowboys Stadium than by his opponent this week. This gleaming, palatial stadium with a scoreboard the size of a small town helped replace interest lost when Pacquiao’s negotiations with Floyd Mayweather Jr. fell apart over blood testing.
Boxing wanted to expand its fan base. Jerry Jones wanted to show off his latest toy, its price tag in excess of $1 billion. The fight featured three stars — Pacquiao, Jones and the one at midfield, underneath the ring.
Even with Joshua Clottey, a competent if relatively unknown welterweight, opposing Pacquiao, the bout still sold more than 50,000 tickets. When Clottey’s manager called his fighter with Pacquiao’s proposal, Clottey first asked if he was kidding.
Clottey entered this fight with 35 victories, and each of his three losses came against world champions, in close and sometimes controversial decisions. In those 38 fights, no boxer knocked Clottey down. No one even cut him.
“He isn’t going to be awed by the big stage,” the promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank Boxing predicted.
Roach felt different. The more tape he watched of Clottey, the more convinced he became: Clottey fought the same way every fight, predictable, with little movement, straight ahead. Roach believed Pacquiao would overwhelm Clottey with his speed, same as Pacquiao did to Miguel Cotto in his last fight.
Pacquiao would become the first boxer to knock Clottey onto the canvas, Roach insisted. Clottey replied, Only with voodoo, or black magic.
Other than that, and Roach’s ongoing but minor feud with Lenny DeJesus, a former Roach employee and Clottey’s replacement trainer here, fight week felt more like a peace summit than a boxing bout. Instead of trash talk, they traded compliments. Even at the weigh-in, Pacquiao wore a smile and, strangely, socks.
Source: nytimes.com
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