For 12 rounds, Pacquiao proved once again the value of speed over size inside a boxing ring by blistering the three-time welterweight champion’s face into an almost unrecognizable mass of contusions and cuts.
Pacquiao was in control from the first punch to the last, his hand speed making Margarito look like what he always has been - a ponderously resilient man whose chin was his greatest asset. Last night it was, however, his co-conspirator because it forced him to take punishment no man should have to endure.
In the end, Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38) won a lop-sided 12-round decision and the WBC super welterweight title, closing both Margarito’s eyes and lacerating his cheek in the process. By the final bell, the once cocky Mexican champion was a man who looked like he’d been jumped by a street gang. He had. A gang of one.
By fight night, much bile had begun to gather in the two camps and it boiled over during a locker room confrontation between trainers Freddie Roach and Robert Garcia and two members of the Texas Boxing Commission when Garcia complained no one from his camp had fully seen Pacquiao’s hand wraps. Roach countered that Margarito (38-7, 27) had taken ephedrine, which when combined with the four cups of coffee he’d consumed in the locker room, could morph with the caffeine into a form of speed. The commission officials agreed ephedrine was on the banned substance list, but said if Margarito had ingested it he did so at the risk of failing the post-fight blood test. Garcia countered that his fighter had simply put splenda, an artificial sweetner, in the coffee.
Whether this was merely high-level brinksmanship or not, that dust up made clear the tension that swirling around both locker rooms in the final hour before their showdown. Talk of doctored hand wraps had dogged Margarito throughout the promotion because he had been found wearing knuckle pads that had been illegally tampered with before a loss to Shane Mosley nearly two years ago and had his license to box revoked for what amounted to 22 months before Texas relented to bring this bout to the Dallas metroplex.
Eventually the real fight began with both starting cautiously, Pacquiao circling, Margarito with his hands held high by his ears. The difference in hand speed was clear from the outset however, Pacquiao landing crisp combinations and a straight right jab that snapped Margarito’s head back and blunted his usually relentless forward motion.
The three-time welterweight champion’s punches were, as always, wide more often missed the mark, giving Pacquiao room to counter, which he did often enough that the normally large number of punches thrown by Margarito became only as a trickle.
Margarito’s size finally came into play in Round 9 when he twice pinned Pacquiao against the ropes and caught him with some big left hands, but he never got there again, instead suffering three more rounds of assault that buckled his knees in the 11th round and left his eyes nearly closed, his cheek slit open and his pride badly bruised after Pacquiao finally turned to referee Laurence Cole late in that round, appealing for him to step in.
He refused and so the beat down went on for three more pointless minutes, the outcome and Pacquiao’s superiority long ago having been decided.
rborges@bostonherald.com
Source: bostonherald.com
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