Great expectations in boxing, the NBA

THAT was a mean left hook thrown by  Juan Manuel Marquez which all but knocked out Manny Pacquiao’s desperately sought fifth fight with the Mexican ring legend.

Marquez, who abruptly ended Pacquiao’s reign as his era’s greatest fighter with a sensational sixth-round stoppage in Las Vegas, said he did not want to have anything to do with Pacquiao.

Marquez said Pacquiao was not even worth a serious thought.

“Anything that was pending was settled in every way,” Marquez exclaimed.

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Marquez has started honing up for a fight with Timothy Bradley, who had outpointed Pacquiao in dirty and controversial fashion before the Filipino boxing superhero suffered that shocking, tragic fall last December.

It was not the first time Marquez had rejected that fifth bout, another dream promotion by the irrepressible Bob Arum.

This time, though, Marquez failed to conceal his disdain.

“If Pacquiao could have knocked me out the way I did to him, how am I going to ask for another bout?”

That, whether said in English, Spanish or Ilongo, was nothing short of saying “How stupid can you get?”

Plainly put, that should more or less put to rest great expectations about a fifth Marquez-Pacquiao bout—if just for the rest of the year.

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Turning to the NBA, today’s decisive Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals was totally unexpected at the start.

Of course, there was that one-point squeaker by Miami in Game 1, followed by a home-steal by Indiana in Game 2 of the playoffs.

Miami stole back, Indiana won the next game and, by then, there were already overriding expectations about the Finals playoffs going the full route.

It’s like this. After Miami went up, 3-2, last week, the first question asked was: Would the Heat do it on the road?

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Well, not so fast because Indiana was far from burned out and, in fact, sizzled sensationally to force the initially unexpected, decisive seventh game.

Not so fast, but Indiana diehards will not be pleased to hear that there was hardly a soul ready and willing to bet on the Pacers on the eve of Game 7.

Out in the Mandaluyong city wet market, a tested listening post in sports in my birthplace, the main concern was not how Indiana could finally pull the rug from under Miami.

The main concern was how fiery LeBron James, et al., could make the (waiting) NBA title series against the low-boil San Antonio Spurs look interesting.

“If not edible, Miami should at least make the series look credible,” suggested one grizzled commentator, who failed to place his bet on Miami in today’s decisive Game 7.

Repeat: Nobody was bold enough to risk hard-earned cash on Indiana.