By Cliff Rold
The “Event” was, well, uneventful in the ring. To be fair, there were plenty of pre-fight predictions which saw what happened ahead of time. It was still impressive in the unfolding. It’s one thing to have the skill set and athletic gifts, another to employ them. WBO Welterweight titlist Manny Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO) employed them well.
It helped to have an opponent who mentally may have been done well before the final bell. In a surprising moment, Joshua Clottey (35-4, 20 KO) appeared to shake his head no between the eighth and ninth rounds when asked by his corner to do, to give, more. A fighter from a proud tradition of toughness in Ghana seemed to capitulate.
Pacquiao kept throwing anyways.
In front of a massive 50,000-plus seat crowd, Pacquiao made what entertainment there was almost as a one man show, Clottey playing the part of heavy bag with occasional long right hands shooting out from it. Clottey was never to be mistaken for a great fighter, but against solid pros like Zab Judah, Miguel Cotto, and Antonio Margarito, win or lose, he was never out of the fight.
Saturday, Pacquiao never really let him into it.
Let’s go to the report card.
Grades
Pre-Fight: Speed – Pacquiao A+; Clottey B/Post: Same
Pre-Fight: Power – Pacquiao A-; Clottey B-/Post: A-; B-
Pre-Fight: Defense – Pacquiao B+; Clottey B/Post: B; B
Pre-Fight: Intangibles – Pacquiao A; Clottey B/Post: A; D
For a full fight recap, log on to: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=26017
The speed gap was palpable on paper and even moreso from bell to bell. What made it stand out even more was the sheer volume of punches Pacquiao was letting loose. It was stream of consciousness offense. Averaging over 100 punches per round, Pacquiao never stopped and fired harder on the occasions where Clottey remembered that he was allowed to punch back.
Some readers objected to the grade assigned to Clottey for his defense but that aspect of his game, and its liabilities, was on full display again Saturday. Boxing is the art of hit and don’t get hit, not hit OR get hit. Clottey, while able to protect his chin and stifle Pacquiao’s ability to land clean head shots, was constantly making a choice between offense and defense. There’s no transition between the two. In a sport where the primary judging criteria is effective aggression, a defense which makes one effectively unaggressive isn’t worth much. Clottey’s defense, and temperament, has hurt him in previous fights. Against Pacquiao, they got him embarrassed.
It was, to at least this corner, somewhat an upset in that regard. Even if Clottey has shown stretches of reluctance in the past, one of the things which made him worth watching was that he usually string some rounds together that made it interesting. Clottey is a world class Welterweight; he wasn’t against Pacquiao. After a string of performances the likes of which Manny has had over the last few years, the credit has to go to the Filipino icon while at the same time discredit has to fall on a fighter who, given the opportunity of a lifetime, smiled and hugged and slapped high fives and was just way too happy to be there.
Pacquiao wasn’t perfect despite. When Clottey did punch, he connected with the right, raising a mouse under Pacquiao’s left eye by night’s end. Clottey’s uppercut also forced Pacquiao to reset occasionally. Part of his getting caught cleaner than he had by anyone since the Juan Manuel Marquez rematch in 2008 might have been that Clottey threw so little. Pacquiao was pushing so hard to make the fight, jabbing and working the body with more abandon than normal, his defense lapsed. He’s been caught less in recent fights and deserves credit for keeping the crowd into things.
For the first time since the Marco Antonio Barrera rematch in 2007, Pacquiao had an opponent who apparently found victory not to be actual victory but in hearing the bell ending round twelve. He took the cue and boxed his way to a dominant win, bringing the whoops from the crowd and ripping nasty stuff to the body so that the paying mass could at least say they saw Pacquiao put on a show.
However, the ease with which Clottey could connect when he bothered had to be noted by at least one precision right hand carver.
Looking Ahead
Of course that man would be Floyd Mayweather (40-0, 25 KO). No matter how many people buy tickets, no many how many pay-per-views are sold, for either Pacquiao or Mayweather, it is a confrontation between the two which remains the only real “Event” in boxing.
It is seriously threatened for the moment, not by any drug testing issues but by a damn good fighter. Shane Mosley (46-5, 39 KO) isn’t going to show up smiling and happy to be there versus Mayweather. He’s going to come to win. Whether he can or not remains to be determined. May 1st to be precise.
Even if Mosley wins, it won’t really erase the Pacquiao-Mayweather want. That fight is now ingrained in fans as a ‘must-see.’ Whatever road must be traveled to get there, it has to be figured as happening eventually. If the worst case scenario is a detour through Pacquiao-Mosley, so be it. There are worse fates (if not better fights than that would be).
Report Card Picks 2010: 5-1
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
