Underneath Pacman's crown lies a halo -- San Antonio Express

By John Whisler, San Antonio Express

The congressman delivered a beating so severe, it landed his opponent in the hospital. But in dominating Antonio Margarito last week at Cowboys Stadium, Manny Pacquiao also showed he has a compassionate side.

This is a well-known fact in the Philippines, where the beloved boxer and politician makes a habit of giving away much of his wealth in an effort to help the poor.

But until his taming of the Tijuana Tornado, many in America had not seen the kinder, gentler Pacquiao.

For most of their WBC super welterweight title fight, Pacquiao pounded the bigger but slower Margarito with astounding ease.

Then in the late rounds, the lion became a lamb.

After Margarito's eyes were nearly swollen shut and his face became a bloody mask, the champ began to fear for his opponent's safety.

“I try to get the referee to talk to the doctor,” Pacquiao said. “I didn't want to damage him permanently. That is not what boxing is about.”

That's not the end of it. Failing to get the fight stopped, Pacquiao took pity on the Mexican slugger, letting up in the final round so as to not inflict any more punishment.

“Manny's a very compassionate person,” said Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's trainer.

Filipinos worldwide have known this for years. Now the rest of the world knows, too. His treatment of Margarito at the end of their fight was a fascinating subplot in what otherwise was a lopsided — and vastly overhyped — bout.

More Manny: Pacquiao revealed another side in the fight. He's also a master showman. In the sixth round, already well ahead on points, Pacquiao lay on the ropes and let Margarito pound him with body shots.

It almost proved costly. Pacquiao was hurt and later had to be examined for possible rib injuries.

“I wanted to fight toe-to-toe and make the fight exciting for the fans,” Pacquiao said afterward.

Cole responds: Some have criticized referee Laurence Cole for not halting the fight after it became clear Margarito was taking a beating.

Cole says he looked for a way to do just that.

“I was trying to find a place to stop it,” the veteran referee said. “But he was still moving and punching strong.”

Cole held up two fingers and asked Margarito to count them. When he responded correctly, Cole let the fight continue.

He said ring doctors examined Margarito between the last several rounds and never asked him to stop the bout.

Margarito fine: Surgery to repair Margarito's fractured right orbital bone was deemed a success, and the fighter was released from Dallas' Methodist Hospital on Wednesday.

Paging Floyd: Shane Mosley and Juan Manuel Marquez appear to be the leading candidates as the next opponent for Pacquiao. However, the champ's camp wants Floyd Mayweather Jr., as does just about everyone else on the planet.

But given Mayweather's legal woes — he's facing charges of felony domestic battery — Money May might be tied up for a while.

jwhisler@express-news.net

Source: mysanantonio.com

Ref forces Manny Pacquiao to batter Antonio Margarito -- Boston Herald

By George Kimball, Boston Herald

When the Texas boxing commission confirmed its outlaw status by granting a license to the disgraced Antonio Margarito two months ago, we spoofed the news with a column for TheSweetScience.com purportedly announcing that another boxing pariah, Panama Lewis, would train Margarito for his fight with Manny Pacquiao, and augmented the joke by whimsically predicting that the Texas commission would appoint the notoriously incompetent Laurence Cole to referee the fight at Cowboys Stadium.

Turns out it was more than a joke. Cole was the third man in the ring last Saturday night.

That wasn’t the reason Pacquiao knelt in his corner to pray just before the opening bell. Pacquiao kneels in his corner before every fight, praying not for victory but for a good fight in which nobody gets hurt. That isn’t always achievable, particularly when Cole running the show, and Pacquiao spent the last two rounds vainly pleading with the referee to stop the fight and spare his opponent further punishment. Margarito was taken to the hospital after the beatdown, where he spent the next four days while doctors waited for the swelling to go down enough to allow surgery to repair a fractured orbital bone. When he was finally released on Wednesday, Margarito received a message from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who told him he had “made a friend for life.”

Between Pacquiao’s dominance of another much larger foe and the apparent intransigence of Floyd Mayweather Jr., much of the subsequent speculation had the world’s best fighter looking around for yet another Goliath - the winner of last night’s Sergio Martinez-Paul Williams fight, or even soon-to-be 46-year-old Bernard Hopkins, should he prevail in next month’s challenge to light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal.

But bigger isn’t necessarily better. Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach suggested that the novelty of taking on larger opponents may have run its course. The truth of the matter is that while he hasn’t fought there in nearly two years, 140 pounds probably remains Pacquiao’s optimal fighting weight, and upcoming bouts between Amir Khan and Marcos Maidana (Dec. 11 in Las Vegas) and Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander (St. Louis on Jan. 29) could well produce the next Pac-Man foe.

Sanction junction

Beyond the obvious conflict of interest represented when a magazine owned by a boxing promoter starts handing out championship belts, our position on The Ring’s self-proclaimed “titles” has always been that the last thing the boxing world needed at this stage was yet another sanctioning body.

Last week, Larry Hazzard, the former chairman of the New Jersey boxing commission and, more recently, a championships official for the International Boxing Federation, announced, in conjunction with former IBF president Marian Muhammad, the formation of a new sanctioning body called the Combative Sports Federation. The organization proposes to rank boxers by weight class throughout the world, and to extend its umbrella to incorporate mixed martial arts as well. Former New York State Athletic Commission chairman Randy Gordon will serve as the head of the CSF’s ratings committee.

We’re no more eager than ever to see yet another set of increasingly meaningless championship belts tossed around, and it strikes us that the organization is probably doing itself no favors with its unqualified embrace of the cage-fighting set. Since MMA franchises operate independently of one another and their “champions” never meet, a valid rating system encompassing that mob would seem doomed from the outset (why not rank WWE wrestlers while they’re at it?), and the process will inevitably taint the CSF’s boxing ratings as well.

While we have our well-founded misgivings about the upstart sanctioning body, the credentials, stature and boxing experience of Hazzard, Muhammad and Gordon do lend it certain bona fides notably absent in the fly-by-night would-be sanctioning bodies. It might also be noted that two of today’s four generally recognized sanctioning bodies, the IBF and the WBO, originated as spinoffs created more or less from the rib of the WBA by disaffected former officials of that organization. Who is to say that the CSF might not achieve similar stature?

But if it does, it will most likely be at the expense of the IBF. Muhammad and, in recent years, Hazzard, have been as responsible as anyone for whatever credibility was restored to that body in the wake of the Bob Lee scandal and the era of federal receivership. Even without the CSF, their absence would have to be regarded as a body blow to the IBF, and if the new organization does come to enjoy widespread acceptance, it will more likely be regarded as a fourth, not a fifth, sanctioning body - one that has swallowed its predecessor whole in its climb to prominence.

Rodriguez logs OT

Worcester super middleweight Edwin Rodriguez, who ran his record to 17-0 with his TKO of James McGirt Jr. in Fargo, N.D., two weeks ago, didn’t have much time to savor the victory. A couple of days later he was on a plane to London, and has spent the past 10 days working as the principal sparring partner for Carl Froch, who faces Arthur Abraham in Helsinki Saturday in a fight for the WBC title that will also sort out the pecking order for Showtime’s “Super Six” semifinals.

Rodriguez, who stopped McGirt in nine, will face the son of yet another boxing legend in his next outing - Aaron Pryor Jr., who outpointed Dyah Davis on the Fargo card. Rodriguez-Pryor will be the co-feature of Lou DiBella’s Jan. 14 card in Key West, Fla., with another New Englander, Peter Manfredo Jr., in the main event, facing an opponent to be determined. . . .

Irish middleweight Andy Lee, who accompanied manager/trainer Emanuel Steward to Atlantic City, N.J., where Steward worked the telecast of last night’s Martinez-Williams fight, are headed to Austria, where Wladimir Klitschko is training for his Dec. 11 heavyweight title defense against Derek Chisora. Lee will fight on the undercard of the Mannheim, Germany, bout. . . .

In 1980, the first year we covered boxing for this newspaper, there were 20 fight cards in Massachusetts alone. Unless somebody rings in with a late entry, Mike Acri’s show at the Mohegan Sun last night will have been the 16th and last of 2010 in all of New England. Half of those took place at the Connecticut casinos (six at the Mohegan, two at Foxwoods). Rhode Island hosted five cards, all at the Twin River Events Center, Massachusetts two, New Hampshire one. . .

Happy birthday, Antonio Tarver.

Source: bostonherald.com

Martinez Delivers Crushing Knockout of Williams -- ABC News

By DAVE SKRETTA, The Associated Press

Sergio Martinez landed a devastating left hook early in the second round Saturday night, knocking out feared puncher Paul Williams and retaining his middleweight title in emphatic fashion at Boardwalk Hall.

Williams was looking to land his own hook and instead walked right into the punch, which landed flush on the chin and sent the challenger face-down onto the canvas. Martinez immediately ran across the ring to celebrate while doctors rushed into the ring to tend to Williams.

It took several minutes before he finally got to his feet.

By that point, ring announcer Michael Buffer was announcing the end at 1:10 of the second round, and Martinez was wearing an actual plastic crown — perhaps a fitting way for the native of Argentina to show his newfound dominance on the 160-pound division.

The fight was a rematch of one of last year's exceptional bouts, when Martinez and Williams traded knockdowns in the first round before trading blows for 11 more. Williams ultimately won the fight in a close and somewhat controversial majority decision, and Martinez had been saying all along that he planned to make sure this one didn't end up in the judges' hands.

He sure accomplished that.

While the fight was considered by many fans to be a legitimate candidate for Fight of the Year, the man nicknamed "Maravilla" instead may have delivered the knockout of the year.

The only real drama in this one came before the fighters made their way to the ring, when Martinez promoter Lou DiBella was furious that his guy as the champion was forced to work out of the blue corner. That side of the ring had not delivered a winner all night.

Despite their first fight becoming an instant classic, the rematch took plenty of time and patience to put together. Martinez upped the ante by claiming the middleweight title from Kelly Pavlik, while Williams held out hope of landing a big payday at welterweight against the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Shane Mosley.

When it become apparent that those fights would never happen, promoter Dan Goossen agreed to the rematch with Martinez, getting his fighter back in the spotlight on an HBO telecast.

No wonder he was reluctant to make the rematch.

While neither Martinez nor Williams is fond of the other, there was more acrimony than usual in the lead-up to this one because Williams insisted on a catch weight of 158 pounds — two under the middleweight limit — since he'd been training to fight at 147 pounds. Martinez countered by saying he'd be "ashamed" to ask for a catch weight if he was challenging for a world title.

The two pounds sure didn't seem to make much difference.

Martinez looked faster and smoother than Williams, and landed several crisp punches in the opening round, including a flurry on the ropes that gave him the round. Then he came out the next round and almost seemed to bait Williams into throwing a punch wide.

When it came, Martinez was ready, and the end happened without the referee bothering to count.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source: abcnews.go.com

Martinez Promised Kayo, And Delivered: Williams Counted Out In 2nd Rd -- The Sweet Science

By Michael Woods, The Sweet Science

He'd been telling all who would listen the last few months that he'd render Long Tall Paul Williams horizontal in their rematch. Most of the time, one need not take such a promise seriously. It's often bluster, a salvo of psychological warfare. But damned if Sergio Martinez didn't deliver on Saturday night, in his Atlantic City rematch with Williams. An overhand left, delivered as Williams was tossing his own left hand, sent Williams to the floor, his marbles scattered on the mat.

The ref counted, but it was clear that Williams, who went splat on the canvas, face first, would need at least 30 seconds, or more, to stand up.

The KO, which will get the TSS vote for knockout of the year, takes Martinez, or should take Martinez, to the head of the line in the Manny Pacquiao sweepstakes.

The Argentine, who many thought deserved the nod in the first tussle a year ago, goes to 46-2, with 25 KOs. He exulted, as the ringside docs took a hard look at Williams, who happily stood up, with clear eyes after a short spell.

The end came at 1:10 of the second. Martinez retains the WBC middleweight title, though the record will show that the fight was fought at a catchweight of 158 pounds. Williams drops to 39-2, and this is the first time he has been stopped.

Max Kellerman asked what comes next. He said Martinez is No. 3 pound for pound. The fighter said he wants to hear offers, and will see what comes his way. He stated that he wants to rest, and then hugged Williams. How about Mayweather or Pacquiao, at a catchweight? "We have to hear offers. 156 would be fine, but I have to hear offers," he said.

Williams said, "I just got caught with a punch." He said this one really worked, because he didn't see it coming.

Come back for George Kimball's ringside report.

Source: thesweetscience.com