Pacquiao corners Clottey
High-def LCD screens
It was a historic fight ... or so I thought.
I was going to see Pacquiao face one of the biggest challenges of his life. A former IBF Welterweight Champion, Clottey's renown defensive and stamina skills was going to finally challenge Pacquiao ... or so I thought.
We came in fairly early into the stadium, around 7:30pm. But I didn't realize how massive this stadium was. It's so huge, that the event staff won't let you in from any entrance -- you have to go through a specific designated gate! (Extremely inconvenient when you have young kids with you.)
In the Stadium
Finding seats in the stadium was simple enough once you enter into the 'designated' gate area. As I sat down in my seat, I'm shocked to see huge high definition screens hanging on the ceilings. Wow. Amazing.
Now there were already fights going on. We came in about the time when they started televising the bouts.
We all waited patiently for the undercards to be finished, for all of the other bouts to be done to see the 'historic' fight. Then the fighters came out, both of them looked extremely confident. Clottey was even dancing around as he entered. This was going to be a great fight ... so I thought.
First round, Clottey seemed to have been covering up and Pacquiao just kept on circling like a buzzard... Okay, maybe Clottey was simply measuring Pacquiao's strenght and was going to open up and actually box in the second round. Nope. Didn't happen. Then the third third round...then the fourth... Is Clottey ever going to box?!?! A challenger can't simply turtle the whole night! A challenger has to gain the upper hand and win rounds!
He continued to show his elite turtling skills throughout the entire bout. Round after round. In the end, it was clear, Pacquiao threw more punches, and outclassed Clottey in almost every round. Where in the world was Clottey? This was a title fight, a world championship and he was the challenger. Why didn't he challenge?
That fight was sadly more of an exhibition, and I truly believed Clottey could have done a better job. In the end, what I thought was a historic fight in terms of clashes between two titans, I saw one of the worst performances in boxing history. So yeah, I guess it was historic.
