Juan Manuel Marquez knocks out Manny Pacquiao in sixth round

LAS VEGAS — Manny Pacquiao never saw it coming. He never saw the punch that snapped his head back Saturday and dropped him to the canvas and left him sprawled there momentarily, face down, while his wife sobbed uncontrollably and the packed crowd at MGM’s Grand Garden Arena rose to its feet in shock.

Juan Manuel Marquez celebrated his victory while Manny Pacquiao remained out cold.

With that, a rivalry known for its lack of a definitive triumph suddenly had the most definitive ending of them all.

Juan Manuel Marquez celebrated his victory while Manny Pacquiao remained out cold.

Juan Manuel Marquez threw both arms skyward, as blood dripped from his nose. Bedlam ensued all around him, but Marquez said little. His face said it all.

His face summarized four fights between two men, two scored in favor of Pacquiao, another one a draw. His face summarized the release of nearly a decade of frustration. For the moment that Marquez waited for and obsessed over, for the moment he set the record straight.

“I threw the perfect punch,” he said.

It happened in the sixth round, after Pacquiao mounted the most furious of comebacks, after he overcame an early knockdown with a reciprocal knockdown, after he stung Marquez with a series of left hands. As Round 6 neared its conclusion, Marquez (55-6-1, 40 knockouts) crept in close to Pacquiao, and he came over the top from a short distance with that right.

The shot crumpled Pacquiao (54-5-2) to the canvas, right in front of Bob Arum, his promoter, who held his hands out as if he wanted to catch his prized fighter in his arms. Pacquiao’s wife, Jinkee, held her face in both hands and cried. It took her husband several minutes to rise, and when he did, his face was bruised under both eyes, which were vacant. He looked lost.

“We knew it would be a tough fight,” Marquez said. “But not an impossible fight.”

Pacquiao was sent to the hospital for a CAT scan.

Before the fight, Pacquiao strode deep inside Grand Garden Arena, through a maze of tunnels. He entered Dressing Room 2 at 5:40 p.m. This was about an hour earlier than for his previous foray against Marquez. Pacquiao was so early that he caught the drug testers off guard. One ran off to fetch a test kit. Pacquiao just smiled, his face filled with confidence, so sure.

The boxer embraced his trainer, Freddie Roach.

“How are you?” Roach asked him. “You good?”

Pacquiao simply nodded.

He wore a blue T-shirt imprinted with his likeness; T-shirt Manny held a microphone, wore boxing shoes and spun a basketball on an index finger. Real-life Manny sat in a chair below where highlights of his previous Marquez fights played on a flat-screen television.

As if to underscore his mood, Pacquiao did not wait for the HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant to interview him. He grabbed the microphone and interviewed Merchant instead. Merchant ably played along. To one query, he said he wanted to confirm HE won the previous three fights against Marquez.

Pacquiao looked up, incredulous. “Wait,” he said, “that’s my line.”

Then it got surreal. In came Mitt Romney. Yes, that Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and the presidential runner-up, every hair on his head in place. Romney, in fact, came in twice. His introduction was at once awkward and hilarious.

“Hi, Manny,” he said. “I’m Mitt Romney. I ran for president. I lost.”

All that really happened, truth stranger than fiction. Or just another Pacquiao fight.

Juan Manuel Marquez threw a vicious right hand that flattened Manny Pacquiao.

The fighter himself stood coiled in his corner before the opening bell ring, his fists already raised. Then he charged at Marquez like a bull at a matador. Pacquiao fought the smarter fight early, as he tagged Marquez with lefts and avoided the right hand.

That all changed in the third round, all changed with one punch. It came from Marquez, who sent his right arm wide, over Pacquiao’s left glove, flush into Pacquiao’s face. The punch sent Pacquiao flying backward, on his backside. He climbed to his feet quickly, his face twisted into a sneer.

It marked the first time in 39 rounds between the fighters that Marquez had knocked Pacquiao down. If anything, it seemed to galvanize Pacquiao. Well, at least until the sixth.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com