LAS VEGAS – There were times during his majority draw with Mario Barrios on Saturday night when it seemed almost as if Manny Pacquiao were the young champion defending his belt and Barrios were the elderly veteran whose feet were stuck in quicksand as he attempted to respond to the whirling buzzsaw that was whirring around him.
It wasn't quite vintage Pacquiao. There was the hand speed, the angles, the blurs of activity – but there wasn't the forceful punching of old or the indefatigable engine carrying him through to the very end. This was late-stage Elvis belting out his favorites while sweating through his rhinestone suit, looking far from his peak but still more than good enough to carry a beautiful tune.
Pacquiao twisted. Pacquiao turned. Pacquiao banged his fists together. He unleashed flurries. He even proclaimed his love for the people. He no longer had it in him to dispose of a young pretender he would have swatted aside in his pomp, but he came damn close. And that is a lot more than a lot of people, this writer included, thought he would manage Saturday here at the MGM Grand.
And although the official result seemed correct (BoxingScene also scored the fight 114-114), it nonetheless felt as if Pacquiao merited more, that simply for coming back at age 46 after four years away and taking it to a younger opponent, he deserved a more tangible prize than a participation trophy – and, of course, a hefty paycheck. Having come so close to adding yet another world title belt to his collection, it felt a shame that he couldn't quite earn the right to snatch it from Barrios’ grasp.
It didn't hurt that San Antonio's Barrios, 29-2-2 (18 KOs), turned in such an oddly diffident performance. It was as if all the pre-fight hype, all the attention on Pacquiao, all the pressure of facing a legend proved too much and caused him to shrink under the spotlight. Having professed himself disrespected by Pacquiao viewing him as relatively easy pickings for his comeback, it seemed as if Barrios in fact came to believe it.
Pacquiao took the opening round, simply on account of his appearing to try and win it, looking for angles of attack as Barrios watched him warily and fired out a tentative jab.
The first sign the night might not go the Aztec warrior's way came in the second round, when he chased after Pacquiao with a double jab and promptly fell flat on his face. The heavily pro-Pacquiao crowd lost its collective mind, but this was no knockdown, and Barrios returned to the task at hand.
Barrios stepped into his jab more in that second round, but if his plan was to fight within himself, he was executing it a bit too efficiently for his own good. Pacquiao was beginning to bounce around on his toes, not quite with the explosive energy of days past but in a decent enough approximation, as if a Manny Pacquiao lookalike were performing a first-rate impersonation of the Pacman in his pomp.
Not all of Pacquiao's flurries were landing, but enough of them were that by Round 4 it was already beginning to feel that the defending welterweight titlist was starting to let too many rounds slip away. Each time it appeared Barrios was about to impose himself on the older man, Pacquiao rummaged around in his bag of tricks and found something else with which to bedazzle him.
He may have been 46 years old, but Pacquiao was posing a puzzle that Barrios was struggling to solve. Barrios, meanwhile, was just another opponent, no different or more challenging than any of the world-class foes the Filipino had faced since he first walked into this arena in 2001 and smashed Lehlo Ledwaba.
Pacquiao was in a groove now, moving with surprising ease and firing flurries as Barrios did far too little to stop him. Instead of, as might have been expected, fading as the rounds went on, Pacquiao seemed to be strengthening, nurtured by his success and the roars of the crowd.
It didn't appear as if his punches were hurting Barrios unduly. This was not the Pacquiao who flattened Ricky Hatton or broke Antonio Margarito’s face. But he didn't have to be. This version of Manny Pacquiao was proving plenty good enough.
The fight flew by, and suddenly the championship rounds were looming. Barrios needed to find something. He just about did.
He had landed enough jabs that Pacquiao, 62-8-3 (39 KOs), had been sporting a mouse under his right eye for several rounds, but now he started to up his pace and increase the weight he put behind his punches. A stiff jab disrupted Pacquiao's flurries, and then in the 11th a real fight broke out as the two men let their hands go, each finding success as the capacity crowd roared.
The 12th was attrition, Barrios finally fully committing to his offense even as Pacquiao kept probing, kept moving, kept looking for angles of attack. It was close, as many of the rounds had been, and at the end it felt as if the official scores might be all over the place.
In the event, they were all extremely close to each other. Barrios swept the last three rounds across the board, and he needed to.
Six years after his last win, Manny Pacquiao had not only not been embarrassed and not been beaten down, he hadn't even been beaten. And if the result, objectively, was correct, the narrative felt spoiled. Pacquiao hadn't pulled off the upset win. But he had come so very close. It wasn't the win he was seeking, but it was a win nonetheless.
Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcast about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He presently co-hosts the “Fighter Health Podcast” with Dr. Margaret Goodman. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, including most recently Arctic Passages: Ice, Exploration, and the Battle for Power at the Top of the World, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com.
