by Geoffrey Ciani – With nearly half his face covered in flowing streams of blood, Juan Manuel Marquez resembled something out of a zombie movie during the sixth round of action in his fourth fight against Manny Pacquiao. Despite suffering a solid third round knockdown from a sneaky Marquez right, Pacquiao seemed to have momentum on his side after scoring a nice knockdown of his own in the fifth. This came compliments of a sharp Pacquiao left that buckled Marquez to the point his glove bounced off the canvas in a spontaneous effort to reestablish balance. Pacquiao turned up the heat following the knockdown and began growing bolder throughout the sixth, and all the while Marquez was patiently trying to fend off Manny’s attacks while looking for something in Pacquiao’s rhythm he could exploit. And then it happened, he found it—BOOM!—fight over, just like that!

Pacquiao never even saw the punch coming. It was a tremendously calculated right hand that Juan threw with meanest intentions, and Pacquiao wound up exactly where Marquez anticipated he would be before even launching the thunderous knockout blow. Watching Pacquiao fall face first onto the canvas, and then remaining there motionlessly with his right arm partially under his body—it was something that was simply surreal. In terms of the sheer brutality of the knockout, it was surely right up there with Antonio Tarver’s second round knockout against Roy Jones and Sergio Martinez’s bomb against Paul Williams. It even was eerily reminiscent of the devastating shot Pacquiao finished Ricky Hatton with more than three years ago. But watching an icon like Pacquiao collapse as if he had been shot at close range in a sneak attack by a stealth assassin was just one of those moments that will forever live on in the annals of boxing history. It actually reminded me of watching a dazed Mike Tyson helplessly groping for his mouthpiece after being absolutely bludgeoned by Buster Douglas. That was the power and magnitude of the imagery on display.

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