Quick ain’t fair

There are times when the head and the heart contradict one another, and the boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. yesterday turned into one of those instances. In my heart of hearts, I really wanted Pacquiao to win and finally silence the man also known as “Money,” while my head was telling me that: 1) Mayweather is pretty quick himself and 2) he’s a counter puncher, something that brought back memories of Juan Manuel Marquez and the punch that sent Pacquiao to the canvas. In this fight, it was the head that won.

When the decision came out, I initially thought that Pacquiao should have won the fight. He landed a number of combinations and made Mayweather look a bit shaky, to the point that Mayweather’s father, Floyd Sr., sermoned his son on what he was doing wrong in the middle of the match. This was, for me, an indication that the Mayweather camp was in panic mode. The middle rounds then saw Mayweather endure a flurry of punches then maneuver his way out of a corner multiple times. Later on, his patented shoulder roll became more prevalent and his jab kept Pacquiao at bay, all of which must have been enough to convince the judges that Mayweather won the fight.

In a sport like boxing, numbers can give you a different picture compared to what goes on in the ring. On the final stat sheet, Mayweather threw and landed nearly 70 more punches than Pacquiao and yet it seemed as if it was the other way around given that the latter constantly trapped the former in the corner and lashed out combinations to the crowd’s delight. Many of those punches hit their mark but what we saw could have been different from what the statisticians and judges may have seen as Mayweather’s defense and trash talking made Pacquiao’s offense seem futile.

From a qualitative perspective, many thought Mayweather was running away like most of the opponents Pacquiao had faced over the past five years. In reality, he was simply being himself, a counterpuncher. Filipinos want their ideal boxer to come out swimming with guns blazing, but counterpunchers are more calculated and patient than the likes of Pacquiao, whose style always gets us off our seats. Mayweather’s “running” was actually him just picking his spots and making his punches count. As a result, Pacquiao couldn’t establish himself cosistently, and threw fewer combinations than expected.

Majority may not like the way Mayweather won the fight, but that was the game plan from the get-go – prevent Pacquiao from unleashing the killer combinations that could send him to the canvas. It didn’t look pretty, but that’s what won him the fight. Other sports have their own ugly yet perfectly legal strategies as well, such as basketball’s Hack-a-Shaq/Jordan or soccer’s parking under the bus. These are tactics teams use to win games, but we cry foul over how they ruin the sports we love so much.

The outcome of his fight will be a bitter pill to swallow for us Filipinos who rallied behind the proud son of Saranggani, and it will be really hard, but not impossible to move on from. Pacquiao, though dejected, was still in relatively good spirits and though he could have rattled off a number of excuses, such as the fight catering more to Mayweather’s needs or the fact that he fought with a torn shoulder, he accepted his fate like a good sportsman. He is taking the high road amid all the reasons for him not to do so.

Besides, it was he who earlier said that we should R-E-L-A-X since he did the fighting. Though for what it’s worth, the fight showed us that there are times when the science isn’t so sweet.