Quote Originally Posted by Dench View Post
Quote Originally Posted by miles View Post
Dench, are you out of your mind?

I cannot believe that you have put paragraphs together in order to argue that. It happens when you get an orthodox fighter and a southpaw together. They trip up quite frequently.

Now to even insinuate that it was an intentional strategy is ludicrous.
Miles, last time I checked I still have my mind intact to where it was it was before.

I'm simply stating the facts as I answer Cutmemick's post, and I may sound like a person insinuating that marquez fought dirty, but that is simply because the facts lead me to a realization to that effect.

You are all right to suggest that southpaw and orthodox fighter frequently stepped each others foot in a fight, but I dont see them happening like always in match. Just recently, ortiz and floyd never had an instance like this in 3 rounds. And Pac vs 4 other ortho fighters had minimal cases of such too. But in marquez fight, it happened 7 times (caught on pics/tape) and "almost happened" for like 10 more times. Yet we never heard pac/roach complaining about it. Maybe they accept the fact that it was accidental.

intentional or not, that dont really matter now. Pac won the cards, but to me he lost. I just can let this get overlooked by people who thinks manny deserves nothing but hatred by winning a fight he gallantly fought.
With regard to Pac's previous opponent's not stepping on his toes, that's an easy one to answer: when an orthodox and south paw fighter face each other they only step on each other's feet if both fighters are making distance by quickly moving their feet forward in order to try and land punches, and in Pac's last four fights those guys were on their heels most of the night, trying to get as far away from Pac as possible, not stepping in to meet his attacks with counters. Thus, they never stepped on his feet, because they weren't moving forward, and if they were they were making weak attempts with tentative arm punches (feinting/ineffectual jabs etc.), being careful to take small, rather than large steps, being careful not to lunge with their front foot the way Marquez was, because they were not confident they could land their shots and get out without being hurt by Pac.

Marquez, on the other hand, was not afraid, and launched himself at Pac, and so his foot sometimes landed on Pac's because Pac's foot is always gonna be closer to his when they're fighting than an orthodox fighter's foot would be. People who aren't involved in sports like boxing don't understand the myriad variables that have to be taken into account in split seconds by the individuals involved. Marquez's only intention was to land his straight right hand and normally if he lunged in like that, he would end up on the other side of a fighter, and circle away, but with Pac he would have had to push his left foot out at a weird angle to avoid hitting his foot - and trust me, in the heat of the moment, you're not gonna think about this, you're just gonna do what you've been doing your whole career, and initiate the footwork you have used your entire career - it's muscle memory, and that's all it comes down to.

I don't know how people can be so petty as to try and tarnish the man's achievements, you would be hard-pressed to find a more honourable, honest fighter than Marquez, I have never once seem him try to gain an unfair advantage over an opponent by using dirty tactics, I even saw him apologising to Pac during the fight for one of his shots going a bit low. Also, I have fought south paws before, and in 3-5 mins I have had this happen to me 3 or 4 times, particularly if you spar against someone with quick feet, because it's impossible to anticipate their movement 100% of the time and concentrate on getting into range to launch your own attacks. Now amplify that, and think about the fact they fought for 36 minutes, and tbh I wouldn't have been surprised if it had happened more than 7 times. Nothing sinister about that.

Floyd is a different kettle of fish entirely, because he likes to pot shot people, and isn't generally looking to land hard punches like Marquez was - that means his feet are planted in front of the guy for literally as long as it takes him to throw his punch (blink and you'll miss it); he moves into range, hits his man (mainly with the laser right lead) and then is back on his toes to avoid a potential counter. PBF's intention is to score and frustrate his opponent, in order that said opponent will come to him, so he can continue to counter, and so people step onto the Mayweather carousel. In contrast, Marquez's counters were designed not only to score, but to keep Pac at bay, to back him up and ensure that they stayed (relatively) in the middle of the ring, rather than being pushed back onto the ropes where he could really have gotten himself into trouble. You don't want to be moving backwards in a straight line against someone like Pac who can cover the distance of the ring in a matter of seconds and get on top of you with fast combinations. So you counter him, interrupt his rhythms and get off the line before he can regain any momentum. It was a textbook performance from Marquez, and I hate to see people scrutinising the most trivial details of the fight, and then trying to extrapolate some kind of negative from it - can we not just leave it at Marquez executing a meticulous strategy on the night, and Manny getting lucky with the cards/who his promoter is? Honestly people need to take their rose-tinted spectacles off and stop being so bloody green, it's bad enough the man was robbed without people trying to sweep it under the carpet.