Manny Pacquiao was knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez in the sixth round of their WBO World Welterweight Championship Fight in Las Vegas Nevada on Saturday, December 8, 2012. Pacquiao leaned into a heavy right cross fired directly into his face and went down hard on the canvas at the MGM Grand. He remained motionless for roughly two minutes before his handlers helped him to his feet. He had been leading by one point on the scorecards of all three judges, but the fight was a busy and active one.
Pacquiao had been knocked down in the third round, but it was Marquez who went down in the fifth. “I got hit by a punch I didn’t see,” Pacquiao confessed.
“I threw a perfect punch,” Marquez said. “I knew Manny could knock me out at any time.” Marquez had vowed to finally beat Pacquiao after losing two close fights and settling for a draw in the first fight, but after Pacquiao knocked him down in the fifth round and was landing big left hands, it looked like it would be the Filipino’s night. They brawled through the sixth round when, suddenly, just before the bell, Marquez caught Pacquiao moving in, landed the big right to the jaw of Pacquiao, who crumpled to the canvas. “I felt he was coming to knock me out the last three rounds and I knew he was going to be wide open,” Marquez said.
Pacquiao said: “He set us up well. I was a little surprised he could pull that off as hurt as he was, but he pulled it off.”
Will there be a fifth fight? Pacquiao said he would be ready. “If you give us a chance, we’ll fight again,” he said.
Text excerpted from Wire Agencies
Photo editing and sequencing by photo editor RJ Mickelson
