In the aftermath of Pacquiao-Marquez II
By Thomas Hauser
Special to ESPN.com
What was going on when referee Kenny Bayless' back was turned?
The rematch between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez was a great fight, but several questions linger in its aftermath.
Marquez suffered two cuts during the fight. The first, a small cut beside his right eyebrow, was insignificant. The second, a horrible gaping wound on his right eyelid, was sustained in Round 9 and was so deep that it filleted open.
Thereafter, Marquez's trainer, Nacho Beristain, could be seen on television packing what appeared to be a long yellow string soaked in an undetermined liquid solution into the wound, covering the cut with Vaseline, and sending Marquez out for the next round with the string still inside the wound. This appeared to happen after both Rounds 9 and 11. The HBO telecast was inconclusive regarding what happened after Round 10.
In Nevada, it's illegal to apply any medication -- except coagulants Avetine, thrombin and epinephrine -- to a cut during a fight. It's also illegal to place a foreign object inside a cut and leave it there during a round. But the ring physician assigned to Marquez's corner appeared not to notice -- or maybe he noticed and just didn't care.
Nevada is skating on thin ice when it comes to fighter safety. Last year, a fighter (who prefers not to be publicly named) was licensed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission despite the fact that an ophthalmologic examination report submitted to the commission showed a vision-impairing cataract in one eye. The same report was submitted to the California State Athletic Commission, which refused to license the fighter.
The NSAC has to be more vigilant with regard to fighter safety than it is now.
The second question surrounding Pacquiao-Marquez II concerns the issue of how carefully Marquez's promoter, Golden Boy, vetted Tom Miller (the Ohio judge whose 114-113 scorecard gave Pacquiao a split decision victory).
Miller was a last-minute replacement for Dick Flaherty, who was removed prior to the fight because of a conflict of interest.
Miller is a competent judge, and his scoring was well within the realm of reason. But there's an interesting entry on his résumé.
Pacquiao is one of three elite fighters whom Top Rank has under contract. Kelly Pavlik is also on that short list. Pavlik has fought four fights in his home state of Ohio. Miller was a judge in three of them.
Pavlik might fight in Ohio again later this year. One assumes that Miller would like to be one of judges assigned to that bout.
Pacquiao-Marquez could have gone either way. Maybe there's a connection between the dots; maybe not.
And while on the subject of Pacquiao-Marquez …
WBC president Jose Sulaiman reportedly was very upset by the fact that the Nevada State Athletic Commission replaced Flaherty, a WBC judge, with Miller, a WBO judge, in what was a WBC title fight.
Whether or not that was the reason, neither Sulaiman nor his son, WBC executive secretary Mauricio Sulaiman, attended the fight. And there's a school of thought that it was suggested to other WBC officials that they also not attend. WBA supervisor Juan Sanchez was the only WBC official to work the main event with Sulaiman's blessing.
But keep in mind that a lot of people wanted to see Pacquiao-Marquez. Could this have been the first time ever that WBC personnel requested seats off-camera for a major fight?
Thomas Hauser is the lead writer for Secondsout.com. His most recent collection of boxing columns -- "The Greatest Sport of All" -- has been published by the University of Arkansas Press. He can be reached by e-mail at
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