BERT SUGAR'S POST-FIGHT ANALYSIS

by Bert Randolph Sugar

Had Aesop been seated ringside at last Saturday night's Pacquiao-Diaz fight he would most certainly have rewritten his hare-and-tortoise fable by the end of the second round. And changed the fable's moral from 'slow and steady wins the race" to something more appropriate, like Damon Runyon's " the race is always to the fastest..."

For Manny Pacquiao's speed gave lie to Aesop's moral, his machine gun-like punches coming thisfast, in four, five, six, and sometimes seven-punch combinations breaking through Diaz's tortoise-shell defense with unerring accuracy. And leaving Diaz totally bewildered, his eyes rotating in their parent sockets at Pacquiao's speed--something he told his corner between rounds, saying, "I can handle his punches but he's just too fast."--and probing at his tormentor with a dull resignation to his fate.

Fighting for the first time at the lightweight level, Pacquiao not only carried his weight well, but also his punch North as well. Almost from the git-go he began dissembling Diaz into small and tidier places as he threw non-stop punches from every angle known to boxingkind, much like a contortionist finally coming into his own, thwacking Diaz almost everywhere but on the soles of his shoes with lead lefts, double and triple right-hand hooks and rapid-fire combos. By the end of the second round his non-stop punching had opened a cut on the bridge of Diaz's nose and left Diaz looking as if he were interested only in catching the first train going south, his bull-like rushes as effective as a fig leaf at a nudist convention.

As the beat and the beating went on, Pacquiao's fans reacted a thousandfold, treating themselves to a maltreatment of their lungs that kept enlarging itself in breath and range every round as Pacquiao continued his assault with a dismal monotony and startling variety. It was so one-sided that by the end of the eighth not only hadn't Diaz won one round, he hadn't even won one second of one round.

After eight rounds of relentlessly stalking Diaz to his knees, Manny finally caught him with a pluperfect left to the chin and down went Diaz, flat on his face and bouncing off his nose like a plane making a bumpy landing. At that point referee Vic Drackulich had had enough even if Diaz hadn't and called a stop to the fight at two minutes and 24 seconds of the ninth.

Later, like red wine blushing at the certification of purity on its label, Pacquiao modestly said, "I feel much, much stronger and more powerful at 135-pounds." Indeed he was, having ventured Columbus-like into the 135-pound class to put on a performance worthy of a Sugar Ray Leonard--or even a Sugar Ray Robinson. And in the process proving himself again "The Mexicutioner," having added another Mexican fighters pelt to his belt, and proving himself to be boxing's "Best Pound-for-Pound Fighter"--as well as proving Aesop's hare-brained moral was all wrong: "slow and steady" never beats speed and strength. This time the tortoise wasn't there at the finish.

Bert Randolph Sugar is the co-author with Angelo Dundee of "My View from the Corner," now on sale at bookstores and Amazon.com.