Pacquiao vs. Marquez 3: Don't Blame Pac-Man for Judges' Mistake

There seems to be a lot of backlash directed towards Manny Pacquiao following his controversial majority decision victory over Juan Manuel Marquez on Saturday night. That venom should be directed towards the judges, who made the mistakes and, ultimately, gave Pac-Man the decision.

To be fair to the judges, the fight was extremely close and it could have gone either way. But the fact that there is so much passion and anger and talks of conspiracy after the verdict was rendered does indicate some failing on the judges’ part.

Why do fans and analysts feel that Marquez was robbed? According to Michael Martinez of FoxSports.com, it is because he had better technique and was more forceful than Pacquiao.

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Marquez, who claimed he was robbed in two earlier meetings with Pacquiao (one a draw, one a loss), left the ring to a chorus of cheers. Pacquiao, standing in the center of the ring, had his post-fight remarks almost drowned out by jeers.

“It was clear to me I won,” Pacquiao said. “I clearly won.”

Well, not so clearly. Although there were wonderful exchanges, you couldn’t help but feel that Marquez threw the more effective combinations, landed the more forceful punches, did the most damage. But it was close.

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Pacquiao is an innocent victim in this whole scenario. He gets the win and adds to his reputation as one of the best boxers in the world today, but the fans turned on him as soon as the decision was announced. His post-fight press conference was drowned out because he was getting booed so loudly.

While the judges likely can’t be fined or suspended because the way it was scored was not so outrageous that you can claim that it was a fix, but it would be interesting to hear them speak about why they scored it the way that they did.

That venom and rage that most of the country felt after the decision was rendered needs to be directed solely at the judges. Pacquiao felt that he did enough to earn a victory, and it is not like he wasn’t doing any damage to Marquez, but because the fight was so close, it would have been easy to score it either way.

Since Marquez was not given the advantage by any of the three judges, someone needs to be held accountable. But that someone should not be Pacquiao, who just wanted to step in the ring and box, and is now being talked about as a part of this egregious decision that cost Marquez the biggest win of his career.