CLOSE WIN. Juan Manuel Marquez tries to keep his balance after being hit by WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley Jr. in the 12th round of their bout in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bradley retained his title by a split decision. AFP
LAS VEGAS—Timothy Bradley Jr. advanced his claim as the world’s best welterweight by winning a split decision over Juan Manuel Marquez on Saturday (Sunday in Manila).
Bradley thwarted Marquez’s attempt to win his fifth world title by coming on in the second half of the fight to win.
It was the third straight close decision win for Bradley, who was a hotly disputed winner over Filipino ring hero Manny Pacquiao two fights ago, and retained the World Boxing Organization (WBO) belt he won in that bout.
The pro-Marquez crowd at Thomas and Mack Center booed loudly and Bradley egged them on afterward.
The 30-year-old US champion won 116-112 on one card and 115-113 on another, while a third judge had Marquez winning 115-113.
The Associated Press scored it 115-113 for Bradley.
Both fighters earned $4 million.
The odds for the fight were tight, with Marquez the slim favorite.
Bradley rocked Marquez with a left hook in the final seconds of the final round, the biggest punch of the fight between the last two men to beat Pacquiao.
“That win was my ticket to the boxing Hall of Fame,” Bradley said. “I beat a great champion.”
Wild punches
Coming off a brutal brawl with Ruslan Provodnikov in March that took him two months to recover from, Bradley vowed to avoid a war with Marquez.
He used his left jab to keep the Mexican away and boxed from the outside for most of the bout before trading wild punches in the final round.
“He couldn’t touch me,” Bradley said. “I gave him a boxing lesson.”
Marquez was in the fight the entire way, but at the age of 40 he seemed less active than in earlier fights. Bradley was the aggressor most of the night and seemed to control the action from the middle rounds on.
Marquez: I won
“I came to win. I felt that I did win,” Marquez said. “The judges took it away. You don’t have to knock out a guy to win.”
The loss was the latest in a series of disappointing decisions that went against Marquez. He fought Pacquiao three times, losing twice and getting a draw on narrow decisions before finally knocking him out.
“I’ve been robbed six times in my career,” Marquez said. “I clearly won the fight.”
Marquez, like Bradley, passed up a rematch with Pacquiao in favor of this fight. Marquez knocked Pacquiao out in the sixth round in December last year but could never find his big punch against Bradley.
Nearing end of career
Pacquiao will fight in Macau next month against Brandon Rios instead.
Bradley remained unbeaten in 31 fights with the win over Marquez. The Mexican fell to 55-7-1 and may be near the end of a career that has made him one of his country’s biggest champions.
The two fighters went head-to-head in a close, tactical contest. Bradley almost sent Marquez down with a left hook in the closing seconds of the 12th.
The American—10 years younger than Marquez—was the aggressor through much of the fight, but he avoided the kind of slugfest he endured in a unanimous decision victory over Provodnikov that left him nursing a concussion.
Even so, Bradley said this decision offered no room for the kind of argument that greeted his controversial victory over Pacquiao in June of last year.
Marquez kept the fight close, and rocked the champion in the ninth, insisting he thought he’d done enough to earn the victory.
“I know I did my job and I’m happy with what I’ve done,” said Marquez. “I landed the best shots.”—Reports from AP and AFP
SEE ALSO:
Bradley nips Marquez to retain WBO welterweight title