Pacquiao retains crown in tight third battle with Marquez

‘Pacman’ now 2-0-1 against Mexican rival

Manny Pacquiao remains the WBO welterweight champion in an edgy trilogy bout with world lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez in a fight that could have gone either way.

The 32 year-old looked out of sorts for the first few rounds as Marquez, 38, frustrated the Filipino with his backfoot tactics and countered the champion supremely to gain the upper hand in the first half of the fight.

Pacquiao came on strong in the second half after taking a tongue lashing from trainer Freddie Roach who told him in no uncertain terms that he was losing the fight and his title.

‘Dinamita’ continued to limit the eight-time champion to only a handful of shots landing per round and could have easily won the fight by anything from two to four rounds.

As it was, Pacquiao was given a majority decision in the end to jeers from the crowd 114-114, 116-112 and 115-113 to retain his 147lb belt for the third time in his two-year reign.

A forlorn Marquez walked disgusted from the ring after the decision and avoided an after-fight interview with HBO in the ring feeling that he had been wronged by the result for the third time.

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Bradley fails to impress against 40 year-old Casamayor

‘Desert Storm’ takes out faded champion

WBO light-welterweight champion Timothy Bradley retained his title with a routine win over a lacklustre Joel Casamayor at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas by stopping the 40 year-old in eight rounds.

The 28 year-old took every round from the Cuban scoring two knockdowns in the process to improve to 28-0 and hopefully move on to bigger future challenges after a safe first fight under new promoters Top Rank.

Rival Amir Khan was ringside for the bout in his commentating role for UK pay-per-view broadcasters Primetime and seemed unimpressed with Bradley’s opponent, who didn’t offer much resistance to the champion.

Bradley and Khan could meet each other if the Briton comes through his next WBA and IBF title defence against Lamont Peterson in December, with the former Olympic silver medallist admitting that he wants to pursue a bout between the two next year.

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