IBR on The Cruelest Sport

“It is the wrong way to end a fight: looking more like the victim of a skydiving misadventure than the loser of a boxing match. Yet, this is how welterweight Manny Pacquiao found himself last December, when Juan Manuel Marquez so stunningly nailed him into the MGM Grand Garden Arena canvas. It is hard to believe that the most memorable moment in a career as improbable as Pacquiao’s may now be a loss. This is not to mistake it for the most defining moment. No, there are too many images of his hands raised, his foes broken, to trump his furious run. Pacquiao, 54-3-2 (38), will always be defined by his wins; by the performances he delivered securing them. But how he responds to the Marquez loss could determine his future in ways none of his previous fights could. For the first time in his career, Pacquiao, who faces Brandon Rios at the Cotai Arena in Macau, China, Saturday night, is faced with questions not even he can answer. Or maybe it is just one question: Is Manny Pacquiao finished as a prizefighter?”

Read “The Specter: Manny Pacquiao-Brandon Rios Preview” on The Cruelest Sport.

IBR on The Cruelest Sport

Boxing is a sport that adds years to lives without extending them, that both glosses over and emphasizes the fact that getting punched in the head is bad for you. Admittedly, the study of brain trauma is a new and underdeveloped field, and it is still unclear whether the majority of the cognitive deficits that are associated with blunt head blows result from the physical trauma itself, or the brain responding to this trauma. Those deficits, however, are undeniable—even obvious—in boxing. Boxing can chuck a man out of his prime like a bouncer, dumping him on the curb, where balance, coordination, cognition and speech get lost in the gathering crowd. This is what is happening when a fighter gets old before our eyes. This is the ugly side of growing old in a bloodsport—the side that counts in dog years, that places asterisks next to ages and question marks on futures.

Read FALLOUT: On Timothy Bradley and Manny Pacquiao on The Cruelest Sport.

IBR on The Cruelest Sport

“Despite the tortured logic of an army of zealots, history was not revised Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. That Juan Manuel Marquez prevailed over nemesis Manny Pacquiao does not prove he won the previous three encounters, or that he was robbed in not winning. Nor does the sinister right hand that ended affairs in the sixth round prove Pacquiao was overrated, or cheating, or any other nonsense that blockheads who cannot appreciate competition without imbuing it with their warped worldviews would suggest. What transpired in the ring did, however, prove that neither man has ever had a more deserving opponent, and that the knockout remains one of the most dramatic spectacles in sport.”

Read The Chilling: Juan Manuel Marquez KO6 Manny Pacquiao on The Cruelest Sport.