PACQUIAO CLOBBERS CLOTTEY

While Manny Pacquiao wasn’t able to close the show with a crowd pleasing knockout, his domination of Joshua Clottey at Cowboys’ Stadium on Saturday night couldn’t have been more complete.   Panama’s answer to the Warner Brothers’ ‘Tasmanian Devil’ came very close to pitching a twelve round shutout en route to an easy unanimous decision victory.  The official scorecards read 119-109, 119-109 and 120-108.  Boxing and MMA news website THE SAVAGE SCIENCE had the fight scored 119-108, giving Clottey the 12th and final round.

To some extent, Joshua Clottey fought his type of fight.  The only problem was that he quickly found out that his usual fight wouldn’t work against the singular talents of Manny Pacquiao.  Clottey isn’t a high output puncher or a risk taker.  He’s a fighter that likes to block punches and counter.  Unfortunately, in this fight he did a lot more covering up than counterpunching.   He found himself in a no-win position—he could cover up and stay relatively safe from Pacquiao’s power shots giving up rounds in the process or he could open up and leave himself vulnerable to his opponent’s devastating combinations.
 
On the few occasions that Clottey fought more aggressively he landed reasonably well only to have Pacquiao respond in kind.  As his corner and the HBO announce team implored the Ghanaian fighter to ‘take chances’, Clottey appeared to grow even more perplexed as to how to balance his aggression with a desire for self preservation and vested interest in not ending his night counting the stars through the hole in the roof of Jerry Jones’ $1.3 billion football stadium.

Pacquiao responded well once he determined that Clottey wouldn’t trade with him.  He significantly increased his workrate and peppered Clottey with punches, looking for the opportunities to unleash combinations that would come with greater frequency as the fight progressed.  Despite Clottey’s desire to fight a ‘conservative’ fight, Pacquiao never let his opponent dictate the tempo of the fight.

The fight was the first major boxing event at the new home of the Dallas Cowboys, and based on the turnout it likely won’t be the last.  51,000 fans watched the proceedings making it the third largest indoor crowd in boxing history.  The record of 63,000+ was set in 1978 when Muhammad Ali fought Leon Spinks at the Louisiana Superdome.  Despite the impressive attendance, it was only the second largest boxing crowd in Texas history—that record was set in 1993 at the Alamodome in San Antonio when over 58,000 fans watched Julio Caesar Chavez face Pernell Whittaker.