Boxing is my favorite sport too and I've been watching it since I was in the single digits, but this is besides the point and doesn't really prove anything.
I brought it up because you gave me the ABC's scoring criteria. Something that I am very familiar with.
I dunno man, that's my take on the round. He seemed to be busier and Marquez was constantly backpedaling. Plus, if you re-watch the round, watch how many times Pacquiao blocks Marquez' punches. He performed better in that category as well. At best for Marquez it's a 10-10 round.
The way I look at it, it was a feel out round for both fighters.
A round where no one seemed to dominate and fully emerge as the winner.
Again the only significant moment came when Marquez landed his right.
But I am not surprised that a few like Harold Ledderman scored the round for Pacquiao, I'm always at odds with his scoring. I had a feeling he would score it for Pacquiao, but I was very certain that Pacquiao supporters would score it for their fighter. That's just the nature of the beast, when ever in doubt people will always score in their favor.
Marquez lands one clean shot, Pacquaio lands a two to three (although not as solid as Marquez' one shot).
Thing is, it was far from that. It was far from a 2-1 edge in punches scored, a 3-1 edge isn't even worth mentioning.
And Lederman gave round 12 to pacquaio! We're talkin bout my scores.
Which says a lot about his scoring.
I think only Ledderman and Duane Ford (who scored the fight 115-112 for Pacquiao) are the only people in the planet who gave Pacquiao the final round. I find it very perplexing that anyone could see round 12 in Pacquiao's favor. Why do I mention this? Because it's the same case with round 11.
Round 1 is one thing, a close round, but 12 and 11? It boggles my mind....
I don't think this is a case of a broken system, it was just a really close fight (like Cotto/Mosley) which certain rounds, and/or the really close rounds, could go either way.
But my main problem is with people calling this fight a robbery, or clearly a win for Marquez when in my opinion, it was very, very close (I would have had it a draw if not for the KD).
The interesting thing about that is that I scored that fight in favor of Cotto for two or three points. Now scoring wise, that's a close decision. But I would argue that it doesn't necessarily mean the outcome was tough to decide. Cotto clearly won that fight.
Which is exactly the same way I had Marquez winning this fight,
a clear victory. Matter of fact, I scored Morales VS Pacquiao I in Eric's favor by three points. The difference there was that Morales never went down, but threw away the final round making an otherwise comfortable win; a closer one in the score cards.
Had Marquez not gone down in the 3rd round, he would've won on my card by a comfortable margin.
So he went down, one knock down was not enough to steal the victory, not when Pacquiao was trailing behind on my card and did very little in the championship rounds.
And that's why I'm sticking to my guns. Score the fight a draw, (Although difficult to pull off because of the knock down taken into consideration. You would have to score one of Pacquiao's rounds even in order for that to happen), and I'd label this a bad decision.
But an actual victory for Pacquiao is robbery in my book....
