Boxing- Manny Pacquiao
MMA- Brandon Vera
It was a day to remember. Two top filipino fighters in their own sport category headlined at the same day and represented the filipinos and the Philippines quite well.
First off, Brandon "the Truth" Vera. He was set to fight one of the best MMA fighters of all time and a Hall of Famer, Randy "the Natural" Couture. The fight started great for Brandon and engaged Randy out of the gate but when Randy started to clinch, Brandon cant get out and cant give his all specially on stand up. 2nd round is a lot better for Brandon were he put Randy down on the octagon by giving good kicks/knees to the body and followed by more punches on the ground but quickly stopped by Randy by his defence. 3rd round and again more clinches by Randy but this time he got a few punches to connect. Brandon took down Randy on the last minute of the fight were they mad a last round exchange. The fight ended and the judges gave the win to Randy, to Brandon's surprise and most of the audience including commentator Joe Rogan. Yes, Randy have more clinches and great positioning but he didnt made a lot of damage unlike Brandon. He significantly hurt Randy and did the most of the damage in their fight. Brandon was again been robbed of a fight victory. F***ing judges!
Now, the pound for pound boxer in the world, Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao. He was to challenge and fight Miguel Cotto. At the first few rounds, Pacquiao and Cotto are feeling out each others strategy and punching power. Cotto felt the knockout power of Pacquiao in the 1st half of the whole fight were he dropped in two consecutive rounds. After this Cotto was not the same as he was on the 1st round. You can see in Manny the confidence that he can handle Cotto because for most of the rounds in the 2nd half of the fight, he fought on almost on a standstill not the normal Pacquiao that use his speed to move around his opponent and the ring for i guess he knows he can take Cotto's blows and the confidence in Cotto to beat Pacquiao is gone. In the latter rounds, Cotto is back pedalling and avoiding to go toe to toe with Manny to avoid getting KO'd. When they did exchange punches, Manny is clearly landing most of his punches unlike Cotto who barely punched and made combinations which led to a stoppage by the referee and Pacquiao winning by TKO and winning his 7th belt in 7 weight classes and sementing his place in boxing history.
It would have been nice to see Brandon win aswell but because of the f***ing judges, a double celebration didnt happen but big props to Brandon for representing. All in all it was a great day for us Filipinos.
