Column: ALL WRITE

AL S. MENDOZA

CRAZY, BUT I

PICKED CORRECT

RESULT SUNDAY

WHEN the decision was announced, Juan Manuel Marquez stormed out of the ring very angry.

“I was robbed again,” he said.

A fighter like that will do it again after he loses in a fourth fight, a fifth fight, for the umpteenth fight.

Marquez is one chap who can’t accept defeat.

I bet you even if he were knocked out, he’d say, “I was robbed yet again.”

You’ll never see the end of it.

He began saying that after he drew with Manny Pacquiao in 2004—even though he kissed the canvass three times in the first round.

I don’t know if he thanked one of the three judges then that saved him from sure defeat—that judge wrote the wrong 10-7 count for Pacquiao after Round 1 when the correct score should have been 10-6 because of the three knockdowns scored by Pacquiao.

As a result, Pacquiao was deprived of victory.

Include the split decision win by Pacquiao in 2008 and Marquez should be the loser three straight already—including last Sunday’s majority decision victory by Pacquiao.

But, no, Marquez refused to listen to even his own heart.  He was even more scathing this time.

“This was the worst robbery of all,” Marquez said. 

And take this:  “It’s hard when you’re fighting your rival and the three judges, too.”

Very sweeping, indeed, that Marquez included judge Robert Hoyle in his tirade.

Hoyle it was who saw the fight even, 114-114.  Dave Moretti scored it 115-113 and Glen Trowbridge 116-112—all for Pacquiao. 

I saw it, 115-113.

That close, I tell you.

For a day, I went beer-less as promised after my prediction here of a Pacquiao knockout win in five rounds didn’t happen.

But you know what?

On Sunday, before the fight was to begin, we were drinking beer at the Lexus Manila showroom in The Fort Global City of Taguig.

We placed bets as usual.

And look what I did:  I tossed in a P200 bet on the fight ending in a majority decision.

I don’t know what hit me.  I just felt it would happen.

Result: I went home richer by P17,000.

The windfall saw me host a blowout for the family to a Korean dinner.

Ah, at times, the unexpected will happen when you least expect it to happen.