Rabid Manny Pacquiao fans quickly responded to the close and controversial outcome of Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez III by producing blog posts and YouTube videos claiming that Marquez cheated his way to a razor thin loss by stepping on Pacquiao’s right foot repeatedly in the fight. Now Malikay Flores, the President of the Pacquiao National Alliance in the Philippines, has come forward with what he says is definitive proof of Marquez’s cheating.
Flores has produced a video on YouTube, building on the case of previous videos showing Marquez stepping on Pacquiao’s lead (right) foot. “I examined Marquez’s face when he stepped on Pacquiao’s noble feet” Flores said. “Every time you can see the dishonesty in his eyes. [Marquez] knew what he was doing.”
While the video is more red meat for the Pacquiao fan crowd, it has met a more tepid response from mainstream boxing fans and the professional boxing community. “I saw that video” said Earnest Scribbler, a boxing writer. “In some cases, you can’t even see Marquez’s face. In others, that guy photoshopped [sic] Marquez so he had all-black or all-red eyes. It was ridiculous.”
When asked about the cheating claim, Scribbler said “Anytime an orthodox boxer (right-handed) fights a southpaw (left-handed) and the fight is even remotely competitive, both guys step on each other’s feet through the fight. If the Pacfans could produce objective, concrete evidence — a statistical study of competitive orthodox vs. southpaw fights, for example — that Marquez stepped on Pacquiao’s feet to an extraordinary degree, they might have a case. Maybe then. As it is, they are ignoring that Pacquiao stepped on Marquez’s feet too, and that this sort of thing happened in both prior fights. The cheating claim isn’t just wrong. It’s ignorant and willfully dishonest.”
However, running a Pacquiao fan organization in the Philippines is not Flores’s only occupation. He also runs the only organization searching for Bigfoot in the Philippines, Luzon Bigfoot Search, and he claims to have made a major discovery.
“I’ve taken photos and made castings of footprints at Boracay Beach” Flores says. “These impressions are much larger than those of a normal person, and provide real proof that Bigfoot lives in the Philippines.”
Yet Flores’ evidence has been widely criticized, even within paranormal circles. The foot sizes are larger than the average Filipino, but perfectly normal for the typical Westerner, and Boracay Beach is a major destination for tourists. Flores condemns his critics, on both the Pacquiao and Bigfoot fronts, as racists engaged in an anti-Philippines cover-up.
Pacquiao and Marquez fought on November 12, and Pacquiao prevailed with a Majority Decision.
