“Fighting Words” – Pacquiao-Clottey: Pride And/Or Glory

by David P. Greisman

The tale of the tape listed their ages, their heights, their weights and the length of their arms. The previews and predictions included other physical attributes – Manny Pacquiao’s speed, Joshua Clottey’s strength.

The mind was the deciding factor.

Manny Pacquiao won his fight against Joshua Clottey before he even stepped in the ring with the Ghanaian welterweight. He won the fight in the gym, with his dedication to grueling workouts that enhanced his endurance and made strategy part of his muscle memory.

Joshua Clottey lost his fight against Manny Pacquiao in his corner between rounds, when he ignored the words of his trainer, Lenny DeJesus, words that began as advice, a call to action, and became pleas that received no reaction. Whatever work Clottey put in outside of the ring meant little if he wasn’t willing to work inside of it.

Pacquiao threw 1,231 punches on the night, averaging nearly 103 punches per round, more than 34 punches a minute, one punch thrown every 1.75 seconds. His win wasn’t merely the product of activity, however. He put himself in position to send out those shots, moved and angled his body to make Clottey miss, and had the fortitude to remain standing when Clottey landed.

It was another excellent performance in a streak of excellent performances. But what Pacquiao did is being overshadowed by what Clottey did not.

Clottey threw 399 punches on the night, less than one-third the output of his opponent. That averages out to about 33 punches per round, about 11 punches per minute, one punch thrown every 5.41 seconds. And though he was solid defensively, blocking nearly 1,000 of Pacquiao’s punches, the fewer shots he threw himself, the less a shot he had of winning.

“He’s fast,” Clottey said in a post-fight interview, trying to explain his reluctance. “He’s waiting for me to open, to counter me. That’s why I’m taking my time.”

Clottey had lost three times before: once by disqualification to Carlos Baldomir, once by unanimous decision to Antonio Margarito, once by split decision to Miguel Cotto.

“This is the first time I’ve lost a fight,” Clottey said after the scorecards were read. Two of the judges had him winning just a single round. The third had him getting shut out.

Clottey was admitting defeat in the post-fight interview. He’d seemingly already admitted defeat while the fight was still going on.

Despite his advantages in size and strength and his ability to counter, Clottey seemed intimidated by Pacquiao’s speed. He came forward behind his high guard, more often waiting for his opportunity instead of creating it.

He threw more than 40 punches in a round just once. That 11th round was also the stanza in which he landed the most – 12. He landed just 108 punches on the night, an average of nine per round. Three per minute. One landed punch every 20 seconds.

Pacquiao, by contrast, landed 246 punches total, an average of 20.5 per round, about 7 per minute. One landed shot every 9 seconds.

The pattern stuck. Clottey’s trainer tried to get him unstuck, to no avail.

“Let’s take a chance,” DeJesus said after the fourth round. By that point, Clottey had thrown 121 punches total, landing 36. Pacquiao had thrown 116 punches alone in the fourth round, 397 total, landing 68. Pacquiao wasn’t landing much, but he was landing more and doing more.

“Baby, you gotta take a chance,” DeJesus said after the fifth. “Come on, we gotta take chances.”

Clottey shook his head. It might’ve been from the water being squirted in his face.

“What are you waiting for?” DeJesus said. “Come on. The kid’s ahead. Let’s throw punches. Hurt this guy.”

By keeping his gloves up, Clottey wasn’t getting caught with the kind of shots that knocked Ricky Hatton down and out, that floored and finished Miguel Cotto. Pacquiao instead went to where Clottey’s elbows didn’t reach. Through five, Pacquiao had landed 41 shots to Clottey’s body, 43 to his face and head.

Pacquiao, too, held his hands high, blocking many of Clottey’s shots, though his guard wasn’t as impenetrable. But he also remained moving, going from just within range (and throwing punches) to just out of range (and dodging them). The southpaw Pacquiao kept pulling his head and left shoulder back, anticipating Clottey’s right cross.

Clottey could land, and the crowd responded to the force of the blows on those rare occasions when he did. Sometimes he refused to follow up. Other times Pacquiao refused to let him, responding to Clottey’s combination with barrage after barrage after barrage. In several rounds, Clottey would make a case for himself by landing a few solid shots, but Pacquiao would add a persuasive closing argument to punctuate his earlier statements.

Clottey put forth his defense. But that wouldn’t help him win.

“Let’s create openings now, okay? Let’s create openings. Let’s take a chance.” DeJesus said after the sixth.

“Let’s be creative. Let’s throw punches now, okay?” DeJesus said after the seventh.

After the eighth: “We’re losing every round, so let’s get to it. We’re losing every damn round. Come on.”

Through eight, Clottey had landed 71 of 259 punches, compared to 145 of 785 for Pacquiao. Clottey had only landed 47 power shots. Pacquiao had landed 133.

Pacquiao had landed more power punches through eight rounds than Clottey would land, between jabs and power shots, on the night.

“You’re taking a whipping, baby,” DeJesus said after the ninth. “What’s going on? Come on! We haven’t won a round, baby. We’ve got to do something. Come on.”

Clottey finally showed some fire in the final minute of the tenth, landing a left uppercut, a left hook and a right hand, followed by another left hook, another right, and another left uppercut. Pacquiao took it – perhaps testing himself as he had against Cotto last year – then clapped his gloves together, showing he was okay, the same joy of battle he displayed after getting hit cleanly by Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez. Pacquiao withstood more clean hooks and uppercuts from Clottey in the 11th and 12th.

Pacquiao is a gladiator of immeasurable machismo, the owner of the fighters’ version of that kind of insanity that drives a man to run a marathon, to put his body through pain just to see if he can do it.

For Pacquiao, fighting is about both pride and glory, about winning and giving everything he has to get the victory. Clottey opted not to go for the glory, settling for survival, for whatever pride that comes with not getting run over the way Hatton and Cotto had.

Clottey didn’t go down. But he didn’t go down fighting either.

The 10 Count

1.  What a bizarre night for the HBO commentators, between Jim Lampley channeling Cactus Jack (credit to my friend Rizwan for that), Max Kellerman reaching with a bizarre comparison between Manny Pacquiao and two television personalities, and Lampley and Kellerman taking shots at the show’s promoter.

2.  We’ll start with the most memorable moment – Lampley’s outburst, which sure didn’t take long to turn into its own YouTube video.

With about 40 seconds remaining in the eighth round, Lampley transitioned from blow-by-blow man to Batman-like sound effects:

“Four-punch, five-punch, six-punch combination. Body shot, body shot, bang, bang, bang. BANG! BANG! BANG! Try and stop it. BANG! BANG! Here I come. BANG! Do you wanna throw sometime? BANG! This is the Manny Pacquiao who has dominated boxing for the past three years. BANG! BANG, BANG! BANG, BANG! Do you wanna throw back? BANG! Keep coming.”

Wow…

More annoying: Sixteen “BANG”s from Jim Lampley or one “BAM!” from Dan Le Batard?

3.  Earlier, during Manny Pacquiao’s long walk from his dressing room to the ring, Max Kellerman showed why metaphorical wisdom is best left to Teddy Atlas:

“Pacquiao is – he’s the best show on TV. It’s not just comparing him to other athletes. It’s like you have to look for other comparisons. He’s like ‘Chappelle Show.’ You know, the best show on TV, and you want to enjoy him while he’s here. He’s like the political talk host Rachel Maddow. He’s so prepared. He’s so persuasive that he embarrasses the opposition. He’s a spectacle.”

Actually, I just imagined that quote coming from Teddy Atlas, and it didn’t sound half bad…

4.  And during the undercard, Lampley and Kellerman savaged Bob Arum and Top Rank for the quality of the undercard. It deserved such savaging, but how weird was it to hear HBO’s commentators tearing into the quality of their pay-per-view show?

“This is a sorry excuse for an undercard fight on a major pay-per-view card,” Kellerman said during round four of the bout between Alfonso Gomez and Jose Luis Castillo.

Lampley noted in the fifth round that they were “trashing this fight and talking about how inappropriate it is for such a desultory affair to take place on the undercard of a major pay-per-view.”

Kellerman and Lampley then went into a discussion of how Antonio Margarito was originally supposed to be on the undercard as part of a “transparent attempt” to build to a potential bout between Margarito and Manny Pacquiao. That fight, instead of Pacquiao against Floyd Mayweather Jr., would be “a crime against boxing,” Kellerman said.

Again, those comments deserved to be made. But it was still shocking to hear such criticism of the card in the middle of the broadcast. I wonder if Arum’s history of biting comments about HBO’s comfortable relationship with Golden Boy Promotions had anything to do with it…

5.  Meanwhile, let me eat some crow.

Three years ago, after Joshua Clottey came in over the limit for his welterweight fight with Diego Corrales – and came into the ring that night at 170 pounds – I said this:

“It’s a shame that Clottey may have outgrown the welterweight division just as he finally established himself as a legitimate threat to any of the titlists. But even if Clottey can get down to 147, there is a lack of dance partners that bring him upward mobility.”

Oops.

I will venture this: Is it possible that at least part of Clottey’s lack of offensive output this past Saturday was due to his having to make weight, compounded by all the body shots he took from Pacquiao?

6.  Quick question:

More of a no-hoper in a world title shot: Bobby Gunn and the two tries he had against cruiserweights Enzo Maccarinelli and Tomasz Adamek (TKOby1 and TKOby4, respectively), or heavyweight Albert Sosnowski in his upcoming bout against Vitali Klitschko?

7.  I’ve got the perfect opponent, by the way, for James Toney’s U F C debut.

Picture this: James “Lights Out” Toney (5-foot-10, anywhere from 217 pounds to 234 pounds) vs. Ro y “Big Country” Ne lson, (6-feet, 264 pounds)

We’ll bill at as the Battle of the Bulges.

8.  Boxing Trainers Behaving Badly update: A Nevada judge has dropped one of three charges against Roger Mayweather stemming from a 2009 incident in which he allegedly attacked a female boxer who lives in a Las Vegas condominium Mayweather owns, according to the Associated Press.

Mayweather will no longer face a felony charge of coercion. He is still scheduled for a June 1 trial on charges of battery causing substantial harm and battery strangulation. Mayweather, 48, had told Melissa St. Vil, 26 years old, 1-1-1-, formerly trained by Mayweather, to get out of the condominium. The disagreement got physical.

Police officers said they saw the former 130- and 140-pound titlist choking St. Vil when they arrived at the scene. She was taken to a local hospital, treated and released. Mayweather, who had a lamp broken over his head and had injuries to his head and face, was arrested.

Mayweather, if found guilty, faces up to 10 years in prison.

9.  Tweets of the Week: A two-fer on Tuesday from a two-time former 108-pound titlist.

First:

“Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah…Roma, Roma-ma…GaGa, ooh la la…Can’t…get…song…out…of my…head!! Argh!”

And then:

“Why am I still up?? I blame Lady Gaga! Rah rah ah ah ah…Aaargh!!”

– @BrianViloria.

10.  Oh, if only @ladygaga had noted she’d been staying up all night thinking of Brian Viloria…

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com