The ‘perfect punch’ from Juan Manuel Marquez that ended Manny Pacquiao rivalry – but almost ruined Floyd Mayweather Jr super fight

The most devastating punch boxing great Juan Manuel Marquez would ever throw was also the blow that ended his rivalry with Manny Pacquiao.

And it ended their feud in so conclusive a fashion that Pacquiao was simply never the same again.

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When the Filipino was left lifeless, face down on the canvas at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena, there was briefly far greater concern than the fact that he had, for the first time in his celebrated career, suffered successive defeats.

The fight that had partly been chosen to revive interest in the overdue super fight with Floyd Mayweather had become the one that had left it at far greater risk. After having also controversially lost via split decision to Timothy Bradley, Pacquiao could no longer realistically claim to deserve parity with Mayweather, and the illusion that theirs would prove the most absorbing and competitive of fights was shattered almost as convincingly as Marquez had thrown the explosive punch that landed on Pacquiao’s jaw.

At his remarkable peak, Pacquiao, recognised most of all for his success against fighters of Mexican descent, had recorded two victories over Marco Antonio Barrera, two over Erik Morales, one over Oscar De La Hoya, one over Antonio Margarito, and two that were increasingly controversial over Marquez – perhaps by then his finest opponent of all.

In the first, at the same venue in May 2004 at featherweight off the back of his first defeat of Barrera, Marquez so impressively recovered from three knockdowns inside the opening round that he fought back to force the three ringside judges to score a split draw. The most cultured, intelligent and aggressive of counter-punchers had learned to read, and eventually negate, his then-unorthodox opponent, and to the extent that there were even observers who felt that he had deserved to win.

When they fought for the second time, at Vegas’ Mandalay Bay in March 2008 at super featherweight, Pacquiao was again the favourite having evolved as a fighter – after beating Barrera for the second time and twice beating Morales – even if he was still to start to transcend his sport. Another damaging start for Marquez in which he suffered a knockdown in the third round and a significant cut was followed by another brilliant display of counter-punching in which he again started to read the improved Pacquiao, and he ultimately deserved more than his narrow split-decision defeat.

The once-raw Pacquiao, under the guidance of Freddie Roach, then widely recognised as the world’s finest trainer, had repeatedly improved – physically and technically – as a fighter in between those two fights. After the second he went on a run as impressive as any fighter in history – as the naturally smaller fighter moving up to lightweight to stop David Diaz, super lightweight to stop Ricky Hatton, welterweight to stop De La Hoya and Miguel Cotto before outpointing Joshua Clottey and Shane Mosley, and finally light middleweight to convincingly beat Margarito over 12 rounds.

From fighting at 130lbs against Marquez he had repeatedly beaten world-class, and in some cases elite, opposition in as heavy a weight division as 154lbs. In doing so – the victory over De La Hoya was that which introduced him to a wider audience; that which followed over Hatton was his most destructive, and that over Cotto his most impressive of all – he had also proven himself a rival, and to some observers surpassed, Mayweather as the finest fighter in the world.

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When after beating Mosley he was matched with Marquez again, in November 2011, he was widely considered to not only have improved to such an extent technically that even decorated, naturally bigger opponents had proved incapable of containing him, but to have matured so much physically that their third fight, at welterweight, was taking place at a weight at which Marquez had already demonstrated he shouldn’t fight. It was September 2009 when Marquez first moved up to welterweight, to fight Mayweather, and when he looked sluggish and, by his standards, slow in the process of a one-sided defeat.

What instead unfolded against the significantly more polished Pacquiao at the MGM Grand was his most straightforward fight, tactically, of the four they were to have. Roach had refined the Filipino to such a degree that he had become more effective than ever previously imagined against opponents with the qualities of Hatton and Cotto, and yet in the context of the near-unrivalled boxing IQ of Marquez he had become significantly more predictable, and to the extent that when Pacquiao was awarded a majority decision it was widely considered the most unjust scorecard of the three.

Even with the wide sense of injustice at those scorecards, and the similarly controversial defeat, by Bradley, that followed, a similar logic dictated that Pacquiao was again rightly the favourite for their fourth of four fights, and that the Filipino, then 33, would win without controversy to finally silence his greatest rival.

Each of their fights had been high of the highest quality and entertainment, and even after the first had featured Marquez surviving three knockdowns in the opening round, their most dramatic fight was also the last of the four.

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Fighting with an intensity not seen since the victory over Cotto in 2009, Pacquiao, as stung by the sense of injustice of the loss to Bradley as he was by suggestions he had been lucky against Marquez and by the Mexican’s subsequent taunts, forced a pace and punishing nature of fight that, for the first time since the knockdown Marquez had suffered in their second fight, appeared to have placed the Mexican at risk of being stopped.

Instead, with Pacquiao detecting some vulnerability in the 39-year-old Marquez towards the conclusion of the sixth round and responding by continuing to move forwards, Marquez countered him with a right hand as immaculately timed as it was accurate, dropping Pacquiao so conclusively that Marquez had instantly secured his crowning victory, ensuring that on the evening of December 8, 2012 he truly sent shockwaves through their sport.

“I knew I could be knocked out at any time, when he was coming at me in those last three rounds,” said Marquez, by then significantly more convincing at welterweight, and having also knocked Pacquiao down in the third round and recovered from a knockdown in the fifth.

“But I threw the perfect punch.”