Pacquiao Robbed By A Saturday Night Special

Pacman won the fight.

Ellipses.

Only, the judges gave the belt to a guy so battered, he rolled out of the arena in a wheelchair.

Reminds me of the coolest headline in sports history: Harvard beats Yale 29-29.

As with that 1968 Crimson rush to a tie, Manny Pacquiao was so impressive Saturday night, only one result was possible: He won.

Ellipses.

After Pacman pounded Tim Bradley through 12 rounds, the decision came in:

Judge 1 voted for Pacquiao. Duh.

Judge 2 voted for Bradley. OK, a numbnuts.

Judge 3 voted for Bradley.

The guy posing as a heavy bag all night had hit the jackpot at the MGM Grand.

The Pacman fight party that my Filipino wife and I joined did a massive imitation of "The Scream." Jaws dropped. Sound stopped.

Then came the TV outrage.

From Jim Lampley and his HBO team.

From Bob Arum, the Pacman promoter.

From Freddie Roach, the Pacman trainer.

From the fans flowing from the Vegas arena like bettors stung by the biggest robbery since Solyndra.

Even Bradley sounded stunned. Or at least like a realist, that he beat odds that only rollers at the craps table could appreciate.

Funny, only the man with the ugly goatee and snappy record  — now down to 54-4-2 with this first setback in seven years  — bobbed from the hysteria.

The lone thing that hurt him was his chin-straining smile. He knew he had turned the Californian's bald top into a bobble head.

He also knew this: A November rematch with the 29-0 Palm Springs muscleman has the weight of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

You can't buy this pub.

If Pacquiao had pulled the proper votes, the boxing world would be yawning like a wife in bed with her longstanding husband.

Now we're engaged.

Filipino TV spent half an hour whining about the bout this morning.

We did the same over BLTs at the breakfast table.

Then we finally awoke. November suddenly has more substance than Romney-Obama. Bring on Pacman-Bradley II.

This Shock on the Strip makes all sorts of sense. And a pile of cents.

Saturday's steal does bring back memories of other shaky decisions.

Sugar Ray Leonard over Marvelous Marvin Hagler, who dominated the 1987 fight.

Felix Trinidad over Oscar De La Hoya, who clobbered the Puerto Rican in 1999.

Any Olympic figure skating final in the Cold War, when communists won automatically.

All sure safer than a hot war. This is just sports, after all.

And we have six months to sweat another showdown: the Filipino Fist vs. Desert Storm.

Period.


Bucky Fox is an author and editor on Southern California.