The comments that followed Tim Dahlberg’s article on the Pacquiao-Bradley fight in Yahoo Sports spoke of the incredulity of the public. This came out immediately after the fight so the reactions were raw and spontaneous. And honest. Except for one or two who lauded the decision, the rest were furious.
From Sean: “Well, that’s the last boxing match for me. Death of boxing.” From David Love: “Absolute last for me, rest of my life. Screw them.” From Sam: “My fart is better than the judges’ decision.” From Randy: “Boycott the rematch!” From Thomas: “Boxing is a joke of a sport. Corruption is worse in boxing than in our government.”
Dahlberg’s article itself began with this sarcastic line: “Timothy Bradley promised to shock, though the biggest shock in his fight with Manny Pacquiao came from the judges’ scorecards.”
I saw the fight in Toronto, in a pizza place cum bar toward midnight last Saturday, and there was a good crowd there, half of them Filipinos. My reaction to the decision was closest to the guy who said, “Screw them,” though I had a more common and vulgar word than “screw” in mind. Some things lend themselves to expletives, and expletives were what came rushing through my mind, and mouth, when the decision was read.
But before that, I was stunned. My mind blanked, the world dissolved in unreality, everything seemed as distant as the moon. That Pacquiao should only have a two-point edge over Bradley in the scorecard of the judge who voted for him, I was shocked. That the second judge would actually have Bradley ahead of Pacquiao, I was zonked. That the third judge would actually agree with him and give Bradley the win, that was when I felt the gates of hell open, darkness filled the earth, the world turned upside down. And that was when I shouted, if only in my mind, “F–k you!”
The Filipinos, who burst into a spontaneous roar every time Pacquiao sent a flurry of blows into Bradley’s face and body, to the amusement of the customers that hovered in the wings, though many of them were caught in the heat of the fight too, were stunned to disbelieving silence. Though they would hiss and curse as they filed their way out. Even the non-Filipinos were disgusted by the decision and made their sympathies known to the Filipino crowd.
This was by no means close. This was by no means near. This was by no means contested. This was lopsided. This was a mugging. I had thought earlier that Pacquiao would need nothing less than a knockout to get back to his lofty perch after he fell to the same ground the rest of us mortals lived with his fight with Juan Manuel Marquez. But this was the next best thing to it. Pacquiao fought masterfully, choosing his spots, toying with Bradley like a cat does with a mouse before deciding to make dinner out of him. The announcers themselves, such as I could hear them over the din, confirmed the fact.
I was with the guys from Ryan Cayabyab’s musical troupe and the only thing we were betting on after the first three rounds was what round Bradley would fall. He seemed on the verge of it a couple of times. Only his stamina or fortitude or heart kept him standing. That was impressive too, the fact that he did not go down, the fact that he fought on, though I wondered how he would be feeling at the end of the fight. Maybe not as agonizingly as Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito whose faces bore traces of the war they had been in and had ended up in hospitals afterward. But not much better.
I was prepared to laud Bradley. To say that it wasn’t Pacquiao’s undiminished skills that had made the fight exciting, or last to the bitter end, it was Bradley’s unimaginable capacity to take punishment. Until the decision was read. Until that mind-boggling, brain-addling, reality-altering proclamation that he had won the fight was made.
Pacquiao himself showed grace in his (manufactured) defeat, appearing in the post-game ring interview, though he could very well have snubbed it and the world would have understood, and saying wryly those were the rules of the game, the judges decided things, and that was their decision. He could have added such as their decision had anything to do with rules, such as their decision had anything to do with sanity. But he refrained from doing so, managing at least to snatch from that loss a moral victory of sorts. He may be gaining in his battles in life what he has been losing of late in his battles in the ring.
In the end, this fight was lopsided—against Pacquiao. This fight was a mugging—of Pacquiao. But Bradley did not account for the lopsidedness, Bradley did not account for the mugging. The judges did. Pacquiao stepped into that ring with more than Bradley to fight. He stepped into the ring with organized crime to fight. Oh, yes, that was organized crime plain as day. To say that that fight was rigged is to say that this country’s 2004 elections were rigged. You could smell the stench of that corruption from Las Vegas to Las Palmas. As one Filipino put it, na-Comelec si Pacquiao.
The media have been calling the decision controversial. It is about as controversial as the proposition that Zaldy Ampatuan is a mass murderer. There is nothing controversial about it. This was barefaced cheating. This was plain-as-day-highway robbery. This was in-your-face shoving the dirty finger and saying “F–k you.” In the face not just of us Filipinos but of boxing itself, in the face of those who elevated the game from savageness to human striving, from primitiveness to art. Like every Filipino and fans of boxing everywhere, I feel sore and raw and angry. It is the feeling of having just had the Akyat Bahay Gang go every square inch through my home. It is the feeling of being screwed.
It is the feeling of being f–ked.