THE BREAKDOWN How Marquez Beat Pacquiao

Published

12 years ago

December 12, 2012

Lee Wylie

Marquez Pacquiao 121208 005a Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, Juan Manuel Marquez finally got the elusive win that he’s craved for so long over his long-time rival, Manny Pacquiao. He did it by first dropping Pacquiao in the third and then finally for good in the dying moments of the sixth. It was an astonishing performance by Marquez, who had tasted the canvas himself mid-way through the fifth. Here, I’d like to touch on what both men did from a stylistic and tactical perspective only. {There are other issues surrounding the nature of the fight’s outcome that I’m in no position to reflect upon}.

Even though Pacquiao was able to land more visibly clean punches on Marquez during six rounds of this fight than he probably did during the entire third fight, he still never really managed to dominate the ring generalship, as once again, Pacquiao failed to cut the ring off on Marquez. Predictably, it was Marquez who seemed to be controlling the tempo. It was Marquez who was positioning Pacquiao where he wanted him to be. And it was Pacquiao who was reduced to following Marquez around the ring once more.

marquez beat pacquiao

Here, as was often the case in all three of their fights, Pacquiao is reduced to following Marquez around the ring. Notice as Pacquiao is looking to land his double jab/straight left hand combination, Marquez is simply turning with Pacquiao, staying on Pacquiao’s right shoulder and away from his trailing left hand. Moving in this direction keeps Pacquiao punching across himself in order to land his straight left.

The above sequence shows Manny Pacquiao at his most aggressive. For me, attacking in this way against Marquez plays directly into his counter-punching hands. Even though Marquez doesn’t land anything in return this time, notice how off-balance Pacquiao is after his failed attack. This is what eventually cost him the fight in the end.

If we think back to Pacquiao’s fight with Miguel Cotto, Pacquiao had a lot of success landing his straight left hand by punching with Cotto, sitting back more and almost playing the part of counter-puncher himself. Using feints to draw a reaction out from the counter-puncher and then countering them is a far more productive way of attacking them than simply rushing in blindly hoping to overwhelm them with volume. Counter-punching technicians like Marquez thrive on aggression.

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Here’s Pacquiao landing his trailing left hand inside of Cotto’s Jab. Notice how Pacquiao is dipping low and his head is taken away from the center line and to the outside of Cotto’s jab.

During the aftermath, many have claimed that Pacquiao was far too aggressive and this is how he was later knocked out by Marquez. This may be true in part, but in the early going of the fight, Pacquiao actually used more intelligence and relied more on his timing on offense, as opposed to all out aggression. Because Pacquiao was landing more frequently on Marquez than we’ve become accustomed to seeing him do lately, many were quick to put this down to Pacquiao being more aggressive, when in fact, he was actually displaying more patience. Pacquiao was still coming forward as usual, but unlike last time, he was punching less and feinting more. But because of the added head and shoulder feints, when he did decide to punch, he connected more often. Pacquiao’s feints in the early going worked extremely well for him. Juan Manuel Marquez is one of the greatest counter-punchers in boxing history. The staple of his game is to read and react to anything that his opponent does. Whenever Pacquiao was throwing head and shoulder feints, he was successful in drawing out an attack or a physical reaction from Marquez.

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Here, as Marquez responds to Pacquiao’s bending at the waist by throwing a jab, Pacquiao counters him by taking his head to the outside and landing a straight left hand inside of the Marquez jab. This was a far cry from Pacquiao’s usual “feet off the ground” attack. In this instance, Pacquiao’s feet are planted. Instead, it’s his upper body that’s creating the punching angle.

Here, as Marquez throws a jab, Pacquiao performs an outisde parry with his trailing hand and counters the counter-puncher with a right hook. Again, Pacquiao was landing more visibly clean shots than we were used to seeing him land against Marquez, but it wasn’t really aggression that allowed him to do it. Pacquiao was countering the counter-puncher.

By attacking in this way, Pacquiao is not directly in line to be hit with anything in return.

Here, Pacquiao is punching with Marquez. As Marquez is throwing his jab, Pacquiao is throwing his straight left hand. Because Pacquiao is dipping low and his head is off to the side, his straight left hand lands while Marquez’s jab misses the target.

Pacquiao continued to have success against Marquez by being less aggressive with his movement and more cerebral with his punching. So much so, that Marquez touched down in the fifth as a result.

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As Marquez is throwing the jab, Pacquiao is bending at the waist and off to his right, landing his straight left hand down the pipe, sending Marquez to the canvas.

For me, it was obvious that Marquez was looking for the knockout. But like Pacquiao, he did this by actually being less aggressive and more cerebral. By throwing less and feinting more, Marquez opened up his attacking options. It must be said, Marquez was simply brilliant in disguising his attack towards Pacquiao’s two main targets. If you think about the human body, the lower right side of the stomach and the left side of the face are about as far away a target as you can legally hit inside a boxing ring. Marquez attacked both of these targets by positioning himself in such a way that Pacquiao couldn’t tell what target Marquez was aiming at. Needless to say, because both targets are so far away from each other, the natural defenses for both shots aimed at these targets –the left hook to the body and the right hook to the head- are vastly different.

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Here, Marquez dips and feints low, which causes Pacquiao to react.

Both fighters are in the same position. As Marquez dips low, he continues forward and this time connects with a left hook to the lower right side of Pacquiao’s body.

Both fighters are in the same position. This time, Marquez occupies Pacquiao with a jab before feinting low and coming back up top with a right cross. Pacquiao is trapped in two minds –is it a body shot? Is it a hook? Pacquiao’s so busy thinking what to do with his hands, that he’s neglected his feet. Marquez’s lead foot is on the outside of Pacquiao’s, who is leaning back and on his heels.

Despite many in the media suggesting that this was a new offensive wrinkle from Marquez -a cross with a different arc attatched to it- Marquez has used the exact same shot before on Pacquiao. This was nothing new.

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Here’s Marquez stepping in with the exact same looping right cross in the third fight. Again, Pacquiao is leaning back and his feet are planted as Marquez manages to get his lead foot on the outside of Pacquiaio’s lead foot.

After Pacquiao had equaled things up by knocking Marquez down with a straight left hand in the fifth, we saw Pacquiao resort back to his usual ultra-aggressiveness against Marquez again. This is where the fight turned on its head. With Marquez probably in the most trouble he’d been in against his Filipino rival since the first round of the first fight, Pacquiao became overly aggressive in his eagerness to close the show. Up until then, even though Pacquiao still hadn’t really managed to avoid being directed onto Marquez’s right hand, it was Pacquiao who was on top and it was mainly because of how he used head and shoulder feints before throwing his straight left hand to open Marquez up. Now, all of a sudden, we saw Pacquiao’s signature foot feint/right jab/straight left hand attack come into play. All of a sudden, Pacquiao became predictable again.

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Here’s Pacquiao’s signature foot feint attack. Out of range, Pacquiao bounces in and throws a jab/straight left hand combination. Marquez easily blunted Pacquiao’s advance by taking a step back and using his left glove, almost performing an old technique called the stop hit.

The warning signs were there for Pacquiao. With Marquez now able to hurt and drop Pacquiao, the last thing Pacquiao should have done was throw caution to the wind in his quest for the knockout. During the final moments of the sixth round, with the crowd now in a frenzy as Pacquiao was looking to close the show behind wave after wave of attacks, one of the smartest technicians in boxing was also sensing closing time.

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Here’s Pacquiao coming in with another one of his signature feint attacks. As he feints and then steps in, Marquez takes his head off the the side and away from the center, and connects with a short right hand as Pacquiao is leaping in.

Disregarding any controversial rumours that may or not be true, Juan Manuel Marquez is one of the most cerebral technicians in boxing. During 36 rounds with Manny Pacquiao, you can guarantee that he will have soaked up every little Pacquiao nuance and embedded it into his boxing database. Earlier, I mentioned that a feint against the counter-puncher is one of the best tools a fighter can use in an attempt to unlock them. However, if that feint is no longer seen as an intended punch or an offensive maneuvre, and is actually recognized for what it is, then you are providing the counter puncher with familiarity and something to key off on. Something to counter.

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No disrespect to Shane Mosley, but he doesn’t possess the timing or ring IQ of Juan Manuel Marquez. Here, Mosley easily succumbs to Pacquiao’s foot feint attack. Frozen by the feint, Mosley can’t avoid the right hand follwed by a straight left.

Here’s another look at that stunning finish by Marquez.

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Contrast how Marquez countered Pacquiao’s attack compared to how Mosley did. Unlike Mosley, Marquez isn’t frozen by Pacquiao’s feint, instead treating it like an amber light on a set of traffic lights. Marquez has seen this attack time and time again from Pacquiao. In the past, Marquez has defensed it by redirecting it past his left shoulder or by ducking under it. Here, Marquez keys off Pacquiao’s stutter before the leap and connects with a right cross just as Pacquiao’s throwing his right hand. Marquez knows that Pacquiao’s right hand is nothing but a decoy before the straight left hand. Once Pacquiao feints, Marquez knew there was another move before Pacquiao launched his real attack.

Up until the point of the knockout, although Pacquiao seemed to be coming on strong, the fight was pretty much in hanging in the balance. I was really impressed with Pacquiao’s more controlled attacks and his improved upper body and head movement, as was I with Marquez’s continued ability to force Pacquiao into moving onto his right hand -this time by using a left hook to the body to go with his already excellent positional foot work- and also his timing.

Although many will argue that Pacquiao’s best moments came just after he knocked Marquez down, when he seemed to be on the verge of taking over the fight, this was the moment when he actually became most vulnerable to Marquez’s hard right hand counters.

The warning signs were there all along for Manny Pacquiao.

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Lee Wylie

“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Published

6 hours ago

May 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Stephen-Breadman-Edwards-An-Unlikely-Boxing-Coach-with-a-Panoramic-View-of-the-Sport

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.

It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.

In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.

Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.

It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.

“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.

Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.

Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.

Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.

We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.

Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”

But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.

“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”

Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.

Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”

If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38^th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.

Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”

Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.

Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.

On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.

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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Published

2 days ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-(mostly)-Ugly-A-Weeend-Boxing-Recap-and-More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.

In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.

Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.

CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.

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Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.

Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”

And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.

Joey Archer

Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer

Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.

Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)

Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.

Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.

In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.

When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.

Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.

May he rest in peace.

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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Published

4 days ago

May 4, 2025

David A. Avila

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Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.

Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.

“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.

Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.

After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.

Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.

One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”

Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.

“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”

Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.

A real fight was happening.

Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.

Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.

In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.

“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”

Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.

In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.

“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”

Espinoza Wins

WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.

“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.

Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.

Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.

It was Espinoza’s third title defense.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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