GRAPEVINE, Tex. – To look across the atrium of the Gaylord Texan resort on a Sunday morning – Alamo replica here, River Walk replica there – is to wonder: How did this place get built between Dallas and Fort Worth and not Mandalay Bay and MGM Grand? It would work well on the Strip; borrow a roller coaster from Arlington’s Six Flags and name the compound Texas Texas.
Bright as the atrium is with late-winter sunshine filtered through its domed ceiling, the natural light is but a solar imitation of what shone down from the roof of Cowboys Stadium Saturday night. To sit underneath “Jerrytron” is to bathe in artificial light so gentle and brilliant you start to wonder, Why can’t we do something like this with the sun?
A gentler question, itself, than what ringsiders asked as Saturday became Sunday: Why can’t we do something with Joshua?
No, Mr. Clottey did not acquit himself gloriously in his largest challenge before the largest crowd to see a prizefight in America since 1993. Mr. Pacquiao did. Of course.
The main event of “The Event” saw the fighting pride of the Philippines, Manny Pacquiao, unanimously decision Ghana’s Joshua Clottey by scores of 120-108, 119-109 and 119-109. The minority card in that trio is the one that had it right. The match was for a welterweight title, but only one man seemed to care.
Here’s the pep talk someone needed to give Joshua Clottey in his dressing room before the fight: “Josh, they call you ‘a good loser’. You make fun fights with guys expected to beat you, and you lose. You’re not going to win by decision tonight. So help me God, Josh, if you let this fight go 12 rounds, you damn well better not go to another post-fight press conference and say you were robbed. If you don’t stop this little guy by the end of the sixth, I’ll knock the microphone right out of your hand before I let you whine to the press again!”
Actually, that speech should have been given on the first day of training camp and followed by breakfast recitals each morning for the next six weeks. Clearly it wasn’t. Or it was, and Clottey’s impervious to speeches as he is to opponents’ punches.
Rather than a resentful b-sider ready to use every ounce of his likely 20-pound advantage on Pacquiao, we got a Ghanaian gentleman fully committed to winning the perfect way or no way.
At least he committed to something.
Clottey committed to a few uppercuts in the 10th round too, to be fair, but by then his discouragement had won the race with Pacquiao’s fatigue – a race on whose outcome the fight pivoted.
For the first time since he began making superfights, on Saturday Manny Pacquiao fought scared. Not cautious, like he began with Oscar De La Hoya or Miguel Cotto; not patient, like he began with Ricky Hatton. Scared. Muscle memory ensured Pacquiao’s combinations were tight and well-schooled. But quite often in the fight’s opening half, Pacquiao threw his hands because it was the one way to keep Clottey from punching him. And Pacquiao wanted no part of being punched by Clottey.
But everything had to be just right before Clottey would even attempt the feat. It was reminiscent of the way novelist Philip Roth once described the opening forays of a poet who discovered the craft late: He set off with all the confidence of a person who’s never succeeded at anything.
That’s not counterintuitive as it looks. It’s an apt way to depict someone who cruises through life attributing all past failures to carelessness: Once I decide to mean it, the world will be jarred by my genius.
That man needs things to be unconditionally perfect before he begins. Clottey fought like a guy who had 36 or so rounds to find the perfect platform for landing his perfect combination on Pacquiao. He was in absolutely no hurry. He was never in trouble; he knew in the first round that Pacquiao – for all his unorthodox angles and speed – didn’t hit anything like a natural 147-pounder does, certainly nothing like Antonio Margarito, a supernatural welter, did.
Pacquiao, though, had Clottey figured out quicker still. Not enough credit is given to Pacquiao’s ring IQ. But he’s been in 56 prizefights, guys, so maybe now’s a good time. Pacquiao noticed in round 1 that so long as his hands were in motion, Clottey’s were still. For the next 35 minutes, then, Pacquiao simply moved his hands every time Clottey found confidence enough to throw more than a meek, range-finding, right-hand lead. Clottey’s only meaningful punches all night came when Pacquiao imitated his shell defense.
Then Pacquiao would sample Clottey’s power, decide he wanted no part of it and start his body back in motion. And Clottey would follow along, expertly cut off the ring, then show Pacquiao’s onrushing knuckles the full brunt of his forearms. An unofficial count had Pacquiao striking Clottey’s gloves, forearms, ribs and face 1,300 times. Pacquiao didn’t have enough power to shake Clottey – nobody does – but he had power enough to keep Clottey from throwing back. That’s getting the job done.
So what’s next for the best fighter in the world, perhaps the only entertainer in history that could interest 51,000 people in a fight with Joshua Clottey? Probably not Floyd Mayweather. Their emissaries now speak different languages: My guy’s ticket sales against your guy’s pay-per-view buys. Probably Antonio Margarito, whose apology-free rehabilitation tour made him ubiquitous last weekend: Lobby, weigh-in, elevator, ringside, restaurant.
Promoter Top Rank’s masterful matchmakers will watch closely when Margarito next fights with unloaded gloves. You’ll know he’s more shot than you think if he and Pacquiao plan a two-step for September.
That’s how they dance in Texas. And after Cowboys Stadium was “The Event” last week, there are now reasons galore to make a second step in Arlington.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter.com/bartbarry
Photo by Chris Darina / Top Rank