MANILA, 16 November — If we are to believe the great American sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, boxing, indeed, is the red light district of sports.
It came true this weekend.
Filipino Manny Pacquiao kept his International Boxing Federation (IBF) super bantamweight title but not after going through a rough-and-tumble brawl with a dirty-fighting challenger in Agapito Sanchez of the Dominican Republic before a dejected crowd at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, USA.
It nearly cost Pacquiao his IBF belt — the lone world title the Philippines is holding at the moment in a year of failures by Filipino prizefighters inside the ring.
Defeat stared at the Filipino jawbreaker straight right into his eyes when the scheduled 12-round bout was stopped prematurely by the referee after the reigning champion suffered a hideous cut on his right eyebrow in the sixth round after a clash of heads.
Sanchez himself sustained a cut on his left eyebrow after being pounded in the fifth round by the stylish, hard-hitting Pacquiao.
The third man on the ring, Marty Denkin, halted the fight in the sixth round to consult the ring physician with blood profusely flowing from Pacquiao’s sliced eyebrow due to Sanchez’s — clearly intentional — head butting.
So the decision went to the judges’ scorecards.
With all six rounds taken into consideration, Richard Bays scored it 58-54 for Pacquiao, Marshall Walker saw it 57-55 for Sanchez, and Raul Caiz made it 56-56.
The final verdict: A bloody sixth round technical split draw and both fighters keeping their respective crowns — Pacquiao his IBF’s and Sanchez his lightly-regarded World Boxing Organization’s (WBO).
Their meeting was intended to be a unification fight although, obviously, it lacked the sparks it rightfully deserved as one of the supporting bouts to the main event, the title bout between the World Boxing Council (WBC) super featherweight kingpin Floyd Mayweather and Mexican Jesus Chavez which the former won after his challenger quit in the ninth round.
Pacquiao’s big legion of following back home watched the fisticuffs intently on their TV sets on Sunday morning, most of them found themselves gnashing their teeth in disgust with the rugged Sanchez’s dirty tactics that included head-butting, shoving and punching below the belt.
Dirty tactics that were visible on everyone’s TV screen, but had surprisingly failed to register in the supposedly watchful eyes of the referee.
The television commentators who worked the event — the legendary George Foreman, Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant — were one in criticizing Sanchez’s dirty tactics.
Sanchez employed almost every trick and mischief with Pacquiao gallantly on the receiving end of tactics used mostly in street scuffles.
The muscular Sanchez used his head — literally — to bully his unwitting victim rather than use it where it was mainly intended.
Sanchez desperately gored Pacquiao — maybe he was thinking that it could be the only and short route to beat the southpaw fighter from General Santos City, south of the Philippines.
Feared more for dirty tactics than dynamite packed in his overhand right, Sanchez did not only throw blows directed south of the border. In one sequence, he even tried to rub Pacquiao’s bleeding wound with the laces of his gloves.
The referee failed to warn Sanchez for landing punches on Pacquiao’s left leg that, one of those, eventually sent the latter reeling to the canvas in the fourth round.
Pacquiao was given five minutes to recover, but like a gallant soldier he quickly gestured to Denkin to allow them to resume fighting in just two minutes.
Sanchez had two points deducted before the fight was halted in the sixth round. Denkin deducted him a point each in the third and fourth round for foul tactics.
But, generally, Denkin, whom Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach cautioned as “someone who can turn the tide around,” turned a blind eye on what was transpiring inside the ring which Sanchez virtually transformed into a cage for a wild beast. Certainly, not a cage for Pacquiao.
Denkin hardly gave attention to the Filipino’s plea on several occasions, particularly during that moment when Sanchez hit him hard on his left leg in the fourth stanza that sent him down on the floor grimacing in pain.
After the fight, Pacquiao expressed frustration over his failure to score a convincing victory, saying: “I’m really frustrated because I really wanted to continue the fight. But he (Sanchez) spoiled the night.” Pacquiao said Sanchez wrestled him to the canvas, twisted his left leg and hit him on the thigh.
“That was not boxing. It was wrestling” he Pacquiao, whose deep cut needed several stitches to close. “He is a dirty fighter. I am happy that I am still champion.” Pacquiao’s business manager Rod Nazario was more candidly brutal at Sanchez’s fight style, saying: “He is the dirtiest fighter I have ever seen.” The Filipino crowd-drawer conceded the first two rounds to Sanchez, but insisted he was on his way to sending him to dreamland had it not been for the physician’s intervention.
When the bout was stopped, Pacquiao was already taking command, hitting his opponent with a tattoo of left-right combinations. Sanchez was back-pedalling all the time and did not hurt the champion with his ineffective counter-punching.
Pacquiao suffered a deep cut over his right eye in a head butt after a relatively sedate first round.
He said not even once did he entertain the cowardly act of calling it quits even after suffering a deep cut on his right eyebrow. And he refused to show signs he was going to back out from the fight.
With blood masquerading his face due to wounds he got from his opponent, Pacquiao still fought like a wounded soldier, slowly taking over the fight from round three onward.
As the fight progressed, Pacquiao worked his way to regaining his composure, but it took him some time.
He settled down halfway through the third canto and scored with a left uppercut and an overhand left before Sanchez had a point deducted for shoving Pacquiao’s face with the inside of his glove.
Yet again, Sanchez was deducted a point in the fourth for a low blow, which had the fuming mad Pacquiao on the canvas.
“Obviously, he didn’t fight fair and square. I didn’t fight his game despite receiving some low blows, but I guess that was his fight plan all along,” said Pacquiao.
The one-and-half-inch wound was stitched by the ring physician, who advised Pacquiao to take a 60-day break. The earliest Pacquiao can return to the ring in fighting form will be late-February.
The 24-year-old Pacquiao claimed the first draw of his budding yet promising career, after scoring 33 victories with 24 knockouts. He has two defeats.
Sanchez, 31, took his record to 33 victories, seven defeats and two draws.
A large Filipino audience, among them former world champion Luisito Espinosa, showed up to root for their sentimental favorite.
Undoubtedly, Pacquiao earned more fans and attracted sympathy when he was caught on tape, blood all over his face, displaying his sheer willingness to go on fighting even with a huge disadvantage.
