An old adage often rolled out in times of adversity is that “nothing is impossible”, however Joshua Clottey may want to refute that. The Ghanaian put every fibre of his very being into beating Manny Pacquiao and was still comprehensively taken apart.
To be fair to Clottey he fought a good fight, he simply couldn’t deal with Pacquiao’s all-round package. At the moment the Filipino is flying and looks set to cement his place as one of boxing's all-time greats. It’s a genuine thrill to watch a pugilist of his calibre.
Clottey set out with a game plan from the start. He is a very good fighter and anyone who underestimated him going into this fight did so at their own ignorance. Clottey has a strong defensive stance reminiscent of Winky Wright; he nudges forward one step at a time trying to corner an opponent, when the time is right he lashes out with quick and strong combinations, a potent mix.
As for Pacquiao he proved he can go 12 rounds in fifth gear and his energy levels are boundless, like a jack russell puppy that got into a Lucozade factory. On paper he was smaller and lighter than Clottey by some distance, but a thing like that doesn’t trouble Pacman. For the full 12 rounds he was throwing combinations. Four, five and six punch combos were just rolling out the Filipino’s locker and he varied his style to include more body shots to combat Clottey’s peek-a-boo style stance.
You could tell from the start what Clottey was going to do, his gloves went up and he tried to counter Pacquiao’s hand speed by building a wall with his fists. To be fair Pacquiao hit the leather more than anything else. Yet that didn’t stop him, at times it looked like he was just working out on his bag in the gym, picking and choosing his shots at leisure. Despite the speed and power in Pacquiao’s shots few of them rocked the Ghanaian challenger, other than a bit of a leg wobbler in the seventh, he truly has a granite chin.
The rounds started to clock up in Pacman’s favour, as he dazzled Clottey, who looked like he had no idea where the next punch would come from. There was clearly more of a thought process in Pacquiao’s approach this time. It was a lot more tactical, he and Freddie Roach were aware that no one had ever KO’d Clottey and Pacquiao was prepared to go the distance. The third round was Clottey’s best. His patient counter attack almost paid off with a few jabs and a memorable uppercut, but it wasn’t enough to cause significant damage to the champ.
The vast Cowboy stadium must have felt like a lonely place for Clottey despite the capacity crowd as it became a one-man show in the later rounds. Pacquiao unleashed an amazing 1,231 punches during the course of the fight, most of them a blur of speed as his gloves threatened to smoke. By the end all Clottey could do was keep his fists up and wait for the sweet release of the final bell.
The man who fought his way out of the slums of Kibawe won every round in one judge’s eyes and every round but the third according to the other two, sending out a stark reminder to Floyd Mayweather that there is someone out there who is in his league. Pacquiao’s foot work is incredible, he bounces around like a demented rabbit and his lighting hands even catch him out; at one stage he was ticked off for punching with both hands simultaneously, he must have thrown them both so quick they came out at the same time.
Elsewhere across the pond, Kell Brook defeated Pole Krzysztof Bienias to install himself as technically Pacquiao’s next match. Brook is probably the best prospect in Britain at the moment and there could be no sterner test than taking on a fighter of Pacquiao’s calibre in this vein of form. A daunting task if ever there was.
That’s probably not even on the WBO champion’s radar at the moment though, there is the small matter of the Mayweather fight first, and that has to happen. Other than that, he is running for parliament in the Philippines, making movies and after this fight he went across the road and performed in a sell out concert to promote his new album.
It’s all in a day’s work for Manny Pacquiao.
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