Column: ALL WRITE

AL S. MENDOZA

JUST DISSECTING

PACQUIAO’S KO

DROUGHT IN FOUR

IN his last 15 fights, Manny Pacquiao was a winner.  Alas, the last four fights were merely won on points. No knockout.  No technical knockout (TKO).

But I do not fault Pacquiao for the decline in divine victories.

It started with Joshua Clottey in 2009.

The African kept covering his face that he climbed the ring more as a Mr. Shy Guy than a Mr. Beak Buster.

Clottey was lucky to have escaped with a points loss.

If I were the referee in that fight, I would have given Pacquiao a victory that might be a first in boxing:  A DKO (double knockout)

A DKO because for the first knockout in Pacquiao’s favor, Pacquiao’s intention to knock Clottey out had been present from Round 1 onwards.

And for Clottey to refuse to fight, he had effectively knocked himself out of a desire to win.

Maybe I was not cut out for a refereeing job in boxing that’s why I am now in golf as a rules man?

There’s no knockout in golf, only penalties and disqualifications.  Not hurtful physically, but mentally painful at times.

Anyway, after Clottey, there was Antonio Margarito, called the “Mexican Tornado” for his style of attacking his foe without letup.

The fight ended in another 12-round victory on points for Pacquiao because, well, the referee was more in the mood of seeing the bout complete its stipulated 12 rounds than declaring Margarito the loser by TKO as early as the 10th.

So battered was Margarito that he would soon be re-monikered the “Mexican Tomato” for having a face red as a rose and gore as a ghost from the unforgiving punishment administered him by Pacquiao.

Then in May, Shane Mosley literally ran away from Pacquiao after briefly kissing the canvass in the third for the Pacman’s third straight points victory.

We had all predicted that Pacquiao would end his knockout drought against Juan Manuel Marquez on November 13.

Wrong.  If there was one thing that Marquez surely proved in this their third fight, it is, that he could never lose by knockout to Pacquiao.

He will lose again in a fourth fight, and again in a fifth fight—both on points. Never by a knockout.

It’s written in the stars.  And the stars don’t lie.