Boxing Capsules: Pacquiao dominates Clottey for decision

EDITOR'S NOTE: For a slideshow of images from this bout, click here.

ARLINGTON — Fighting on the star, Manny Pacquiao showed once again why he is such a star.

With the biggest fight crowd in the U.S. in 17 years cheering him on at Cowboys Stadium, Pacquiao dominated a strangely passive Joshua Clottey from the opening bell Saturday night to retain his welterweight title and cement his status as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

The fight wasn’t close, and it was never in doubt. It was so one-sided that even those in the cheap seats among the crowd of 50,994 could tell without looking at the giant video screens over the ring that Pacquiao was in total command.

One ringside judge gave Pacquiao every round, while the two others gave him all but one. The Associated Press scored it a shutout for the Filipino sensation.

It wasn’t as flashy as his knockout of Ricky Hatton or as savage as the beating he gave Oscar De La Hoya, but there was no doubt Pacquiao was in command the entire way against a fighter who kept his gloves up high in front of his face and chose to engage him only in spurts. Clottey’s strategy worked to keep him upright, but he was never competitive in the biggest fight of his career.

"He’s a very tough opponent," Pacquiao said. "He was looking for a big shot."

Pacquiao was supposed to have been fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. instead of Clottey, but the megafight fell apart over a dispute over blood testing. He took out any frustrations over losing the biggest fight of his career by beating up Clottey on the biggest stage of his career.

"I want that fight, the world wants that fight, but it’s up to him," Pacquiao said. "I’m ready to fight any time."

That time won’t come soon. Mayweather is fighting Shane Mosley on May 1, and the earliest the two could get together would be in the fall and only if Mayweather backs off his demands for blood testing.

The fight this night was more of an event than a real competition, bringing in the biggest crowd in the U.S. for a fight since Julio Cesar Chavez fought Pernell Whitaker at the Alamodome in 1993. It paid off handsomely for Pacquiao, though, who earned at least $12 million and built on the reputation he has gained as one of the greatest fighters of his time.

Promoters not only sold out the 45,000 seats available for the bout, but added thousands more standing room only "party passes" for fans who could get a glimpse of the action and see every drop of sweat on the huge overhead screens.

"It’s one of the most incredible stories not just in boxing but anywhere," promoter Bob Arum said. "Fourteen years ago he was sleeping in a cardboard shack in the Philippines and tonight he puts 51,000 people in this palace in Dallas."

The tone of the fight was set early, with Pacquiao advancing against his taller opponent and throwing punches with both hands from all angles. It was the same style that gave him spectacular wins in his last three fights and, though Clottey was clearly the bigger fighter, he fought back only sparingly.

"Everything’s working now," trainer Freddie Roach told Pacquiao after the third round. "It’s easy."

It was easy, too, much to the delight of the crowd and much to the delight of an entire country back in Pacquiao’s homeland. There, traffic came to a halt and huge numbers of Filipinos, including army troops and allied American soldiers, jammed theatres in shopping malls and military camps nationwide to root for Pacquiao. In what has now become a familiar scene, Filipinos repeatedly yelled his name and threw punches in the air after the country’s boxing hero was declared the winner.

Unlike most of Pacquiao’s fights, this one lacked suspense from the opening seconds of the fight, when Clottey assumed the peek-a-boo position he would remain in except for brief spurts the entire bout.

"He has speed, I lost the fight," Clottey said. "He’s fast, that’s why I was taking my time."

Arum said he wasn’t disappointed in the effort put out by Clottey, who was guaranteed to make at least $1.25 million.

"What was he supposed to do? If he played offense he’d get knocked out," Arum said. "I can’t blame the kid for trying to wear him down."

Clottey seemed content to hold his hands high in a peek-a-boo style through much of the early rounds, trying to pick off Pacquiao’s punches and perhaps rally late. But he gave away round after round, despite landing some clean punches on the rare occasions when he would throw a combination.

"You gotta take a chance," Clottey’s trainer, Lenny DeJesus, implored him after the sixth round. "You’re in a fight and you gotta start taking chances."

Clottey didn’t, though, and his prize was that he was the first fighter in Pacquiao’s last six fights to make it to the final bell. The only suspense when it came time to announce the decision was whether the three ringside judges would give Clottey any of the rounds.

Pacquiao threw three times as many punches as Clottey, an average of 100 a round, and landed as many power shots as Clottey threw. Final punch stats showed Pacquiao landing 246 of 1,231 punches to 108 of 399 for Clottey.

Clottey had gotten the fight off a good performance in his last bout against Miguel Cotto, but he was clearly more concerned with surviving the all-out assault that Pacquiao is noted for than winning the fight.

"Joshua Clottey had the power to knock him out but was reluctant to punch," DeJesus said. "We clearly got beat. I don’t think he won a round."

Roach agreed, saying he saw nothing in Clottey to win.

"He had a good defense, but defense isn’t enough to win a fight," Roach said.

More than 50,000 fans in Cowboys Stadium for fight

ARLINGTON — After weeks of debate, April Entona finally decided to join her sister and brother-in-law to watch fellow Filipino Manny Pacquaio fight in Cowboys Stadium. So the day before the bout, she told her bosses someone would have to cover her nursing shift — in Chicago.

Lloyd Damian was so looking forward to this fight that he designed his own Pacquaio T-shirt. But it wasn’t until Thursday that he decided to come — from Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Then there was the group of about 50 people wearing yellow, red and green, jumping up and down and singing one chant after another. They came from Baltimore, New York, Oklahoma and throughout Texas, and are all originally from Ghana, the homeland of Pacquiao’s foe Joshua Clottey.

Notice the trend?

Promoters took this show on the road — away from Las Vegas and into an NFL stadium, with plenty of seats, plus $35 standing-room-only tickets — and 50,994 people came from all over just to be part of the action Saturday night.

Initially, 45,000 tickets were put on sale. The standing-room-only tickets were made available Friday.

Sure, not every seat was great. But with the world’s largest high-definition televisions looming overhead, everyone felt close to the action.

"Everything is open, you can see it all right in front of you," said 15-year-old Yonsy Alvarez, watching from one of the highest, farthest spots.

"We’ve been walking around, watching from different points, and it’s better right here," said his father, Jose Alvarez, who spent all day driving from his job in Minnesota so he could bring his son to the bout.

Then Yonsy started talking about his budding boxing career, mentioning that he trains at the same gym as one of the guys on the undercard. Just when he was predicting that in three years people will be coming to see him fight in that ring down there, two women from the stadium’s guest services department showed up.

"Would you like to be relocated to better seats?" they asked. The Alvarez family was soon headed to section 110, about the equivalent of the 50-yard line, in the lowest section above the floor.

As they were headed down, up walked Damian, a 27-year-old specialist in the Army who is back from two tours in Iraq, and his buddy, Leo Binaday of Jersey City, N.J.. Both wore T-shirts that read, "Just Doing My JAB," with a Pac-man character for the "o" and a large image of Pacquiao.

"I made the shirts just to watch at home," Damian said. "Then we figured we might as well go."

They decided on Thursday. They took care of the logistics Friday and were walking around Saturday night wide-eyed and smiling, taking pictures and videos of everything they saw on their way to section 322. They never made it, rerouted by another complimentary upgrade.

Although the main event still two hours away, the crowd soon erupted in the kind of cheer usually heard when the Cowboys score a touchdown. It was an in-house shot of Pacquiao entering the building, drawing chants of "Man-ny! Man-ny!" from thousands of fans.

Some of it, however, was drowned by chants of "Clot-tey! Clot-tey!" from the Ghana group.

The back-and-forth was friendly and quite colorful, the red, white and blue flags of the Philippines waving alongside the Ghana flag. Most of the Ghana folks wore shirts and hats featuring their flag, some wearing flags as capes.

When they stopped saying Clottey’s name, they broke into all sorts of cheers.

"Most of these are prayer songs: ‘God is with us and we thank God,"’ said Grace Baidoo, who organized the group. "When you go to soccer matches, this is what you hear."

Baidoo spent about a month getting her group together, some coming all the way from Ghana. She said there were about 300 people in all, but they couldn’t get a block of seats together so they were spread out.

On this fight night, about the only thing missing were Hollywood heavyweights sitting ringside.

Instead, there were the kind of stars you’d expect from this venue: Jimmy Johnson, Troy Aikman, Tony Dorsett and the Cowboys Cheerleaders.

Fans didn’t seem too interested in the undercard, even in the final fights among accomplished boxers. The proof? They started the wave. It roared around the stadium several times, building up speed long before dying out.

-- Jaime Aron

Castillo retires after undercard loss

Elsewhere

Huck retains WBO cruiserweight title with KO

BERLIN — Marco Huck of Germany has retained his WBO cruiserweight title by knocking out Adam Richards of the United States in the third round.

Huck connected with a flurry of punches Saturday after already flooring Richards earlier and the American went down with 30 seconds left in the third round. The referee didn’t bother to count and waved the fight over.

By then, the American had a swelling over his right eye and was bleeding from the left side of his head after accidental head butts.

Huck improved to 28-1 with his second defense and Richards fell to 23-3.