A blow-by-blow account of Manny Pacquiao's best fights - including Morales II/III, Diaz, De la Hoya, Hatton, Cotto and Margarito.
From the book:
"We experience Hatton’s shell-shocked expression after only one round, and then the glazed, unseeing eyes as his mouthpiece is taken out as he lies unconscious a few minutes later. Morales beaten into submission in their second fight and then that famous moment in the third as he sits by the ropes, winking to his father with a little shake of the head before submitting. Diaz, falling face-first into the canvas as if he would never rise again. Then Cotto, apparent tears in his eyes as he kisses his father with swollen bloodied lips. The expression on his wife’s face, and his son Miguel Jr. looking though his fingers – a sad peek-a-boo – at his father’s punishment. De La Hoya, a man who seemed too good-looking for a boxer, reduced to a panting submission as he made a most sensible decision."
"Here we will explore the painful details of his beautiful but brutal destruction of champions. Inevitably it will become an examination of courage and pain, magnanimity and selfishness, modest self-assurance and blind self-destruction. Yet at its heart, it will be a picture of two men bent upon victory over one another. In the process they reveal something much more – as we who watch discover something about ourselves."
"In the tenth – and what will turn out to be the last round – Pacquiao begins with a series of right jabs that sap the ailing Morales. Gone are the days of Pacquiao being a one-handed, essentially one-dimensional fighter. At a minute to go it is the right hand that almost buckles Morales, and then a not particularly hard left leads him to collapse into the ropes. He is on his knees for the first time in a fight. Somehow Morales gets to his feet, but all the will has gone from him. When Pacquiao launches another attack, Morales goes back to the canvas, like a mortally wounded animal that is finally succumbing to the inevitable. He goes down slowly, almost apologetically, as if unbelieving that he has been knocked down twice within the same minute when in more than forty other fights he had stood erect through every round."
"Like a bull who has been prodded, teased, cajoled, laughed at, annoyed and eventually weakened – so de la Hoya stands in his corner as Pacquiao batters him. No longer having the strength to occupy the center of the ring, where at least he had somewhere to escape to, de la Hoya looks tired and, as he moves from his corner towards the ropes on the other side of the ring, eventually starts to cower."
"There is no need to count as we are now in the territory of medical necessity as Hatton’s gum guard is removed from his mouth. Like attentive bees around a vulnerable hive, the medics descend upon Ricky Hatton."
"Before the last round more bizarre advice from Cotto’s corner. 'Let’s finish it, let’s keep it going – let him come to you all night, keep on your plan, keep on your plan, we’re here with you.'
What was that plan – to be killed?"
"The issue is not Margarito’s eye at this point but rather his brain. How many clean head-shots can one man take? (Kellerman)
Forty-eight seconds.
Another glance to Cole.
He ignores it once again.
At the end of the round Pacquiao looks contemptuously at the referee, like a Roman gladiator who is being forced by the Emperor to prolong the agony of a vanquished foe."
