Manny Pacquiao Wins Over Marquez By a Split Decision

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Manny Pacquiao has won the fight by split decision over marquez the score is 144 by 113.Filipino boxing hero Manny Pacquiao wrested the WBC super featherweight crown from Juan Manuel Marquez via controversial split decision at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas Nevada, Saturday (Sunday in Manila).

Manny Pacquiao's rematch victory over Juan Manuel Marquez was worth every minute of the four-year wait. Pacquiao won a narrow split decision to claim Marquez's WBC 130-pound title Saturday night in a sensational fight that left two of the world's best boxers...

He sustains a lot of punishment but knocks down Marquez and survives a brutal bout.

Manny Pacquiao, winning crucial points that came with his third-round knockdown of Juan Manuel Marquez, became super-featherweight champion Saturday night in another epic battle with the Mexican fighter.

Four years after they first fought to a draw in the same Mandalay Bay Events Center, Pacquiao and Marquez split the voting among judges Duane Ford, who gave Pacquiao a 115-112 edge, and Jerry Roth, who saw Marquez winning, 115-112.

The deciding score was turned in by judge Tom Miller, who gave Pacquiao the victory, 114-113.

"I don't like the decision, I still feel like a champion," Marquez said in the ring, where he learned he landed more punches and jabs (by one) than Pacquiao. "It was a bad decision."

Yet, with his already dispatched Mexican legends Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera looking on, Pacquiao (46-3-2) added another Mexican fighter to his list of victims by surviving a classic battle that left both men bleeding and weary.

When Pacquiao was asked whether he wanted a third fight against Marquez instead of a scheduled June 28 fight to try to take World Boxing Council lightweight champion David Diaz's belt, the Filipino said, "I don't think so. This business is over."

Saturday's first round was far calmer than the first three minutes in 2004, when Marquez (48-4-1) was knocked down three times. This time, the WBC champion wobbled Pacquiao late in the second round with a left hook, thrilling a partisan Marquez crowd of 11,061.

In the last 20 seconds of the third round, however, the left-handed Pacquiao decked Marquez with a powerful left. Marquez got up from the bout's lone knockdown but was forced to grasp the ropes with his right arm seconds later when Pacquiao delivered a stiff left-right combination. Marquez stayed upright but confusedly began following Pacquiao to his corner at the bell.

Pacquiao, whose purse was $3 million compared to Marquez's $1 million, swept the fourth round. But he said he suffered a bothersome abrasion near the right eye in the round that a cut man was seen treating at the end of the seventh round.

"I thought I was in control of the fight, but when he cut me . . . it made it more difficult, and he got back into the fight," Pacquiao said.

Indeed, Marquez won at least three rounds between the fifth and eighth on the scorecards by pounding Pacquiao with counterpunches and combinations.

"He moved around a lot more and he countered a lot more," Pacquiao said of comparisons with the first fight.

Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, complained his fighter "followed [Marquez] around the ring too much."

Marquez, though, suffered a cut near the right eye during a seventh-round head butt, and it was inspected twice by a ringside doctor, who also looked at Pacquiao's cut after the eighth round.

Pacquiao stopped his scorecard hemorrhaging in the ninth, landing a left that damaged Marquez's cut area. In the 10th, Pacquiao wobbled Marquez with another left and tried to go for the kill against the ropes near his corner.

Marquez, producing a big-hearted effort similar to his brother Rafael's in his classic March 1 loss to super-bantamweight champion Israel Vazquez, survived the Pacquiao attack, then won the 11th and 12th rounds on the Miller and Roth cards.

Both fighters backed up the other in the final half of the final round.

"It was a bad decision," Marquez said. "That first knockdown, he got me cold, but then I adjusted my game plan and thought I dictated the rest of the fight. . . . People know I won. The fight is not just one round. I felt I won. I won."

Roach, the fight veteran who prepared Pacquiao for eight weeks in a Hollywood gym, said, "It was a close fight. It could've gone either way."

Marquez's promoter, Richard Schaefer, argued for an immediate rematch, telling Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, "There's controversy, it was a great fight."

Answered Arum: "Nobody's talking about not doing that fight again. The question is when."

On the undercard, La Puente's Steven Luevano (35-1) successfully defended his World Boxing Organization featherweight belt, surviving a fourth-round knockdown at the hands of Thailand's Terdsak Jandaeng to win by unanimous decision.

Luevano's crisp jabs and stellar footwork let him rack up rounds in a sharp exhibition, as judges C.J. Ross and Paul Smith awarded him a 119-109 advantage and judge Dick Flaherty had Luevano winning, 118-109.

Earlier, Chicago's Diaz clinched his spot in a June 28 date with Pacquiao, showing the toughness and inside boxing skills he needed, beating Ramon Montano by majority decision. Diaz, the WBC lightweight champion, repeatedly hammered Montano in the second half of the non-title bout, jarring Montano's mouthpiece out in the 10th round.

Also, Mexico bantamweight Abner Mares, a training partner of Marquez's, riled up his countrymen for the main event with a second-round technical knockout of Filipino Diosdado Gabi.