Whicker: Manny Pacquiao’s win over Thurman will reverberate for a while

LAS VEGAS — “Oh Senator, oh Senator, great is he, Oh Senator,” Keith Thurman said.

He shrugged.

“I promised I’d say that if I lost,” he explained. “So I said it.”

It was that kind of night, that kind of fight. Faith was kept from the first bell to the final. Momentary victories gave way to momentary defeats, and then the cycle spun again. It began in fifth gear and stayed there for 36 minutes of action. Even with all that behind them and a painful night in front of them, they remembered all the commitments they’d made. In the end, victory went to the Senator who kept his promises.

Pacquiao won a split decision and hung on to the WBA welterweight title. In doing so he dealt Thurman his first defeat. This is a 40-year-old guy who has fought 71 times professionally, and has not done so in a self-preservational manner. Yet there he was, quicker than the 30-year-old Thurman, crisp and confusing in the early going, and just resolute enough late, when the actuarial stuff began to turn in Thurman’s direction. For the first five rounds he was about as good as he’s ever been.

It was a split decision. Glenn Feldman gave Thurman the final seven rounds, and thus a 114-113 edge. Dave Moretti and Tim Cheatham were the other judges and they saw it for Pacquiao, 115-112. If Thurman had won, hell would have been raised. He had no serious objections.

“It was a beautiful night of boxing,” Thurman said. Remember, he lost.

“I wish my conditioning and my output had been better. It was just a touch behind Manny’s. I felt like he was getting a little tired, but he had the experience in the ring. Tonight was a blessing and a lesson.

“As my old coach (Ben Getty) used to say, ‘Smart fighters win, dumb fighters lose.’ I had some adjustments I needed to make and I didn’t.”

Two moments made the difference.

Both men came out of the corners as if jet-propelled, but Thurman took solid control of Round 1. He popped Thurman with repeated right hands. Then Pacquiao executed one of his usual leaps, got Thurman with a left and then clipped him efficiently with a right to the chin. Thurman went down. A round that seemed to be his, 10-9, was now Manny’s, 10-8. That’s a 3-point turnaround.

“I was thinking it was too close,” Thurman said, when asked about the decision. “The knockdown gave him some momentum.”

Pacquiao consolidated it with a much better second round, and he did an uncharacteristic shade dance when the bell rang. In the fourth, Thurman turned and walked slowly to his corner, and Pacquiao looked at him and flashed a derisive smile.

But then it all turned in Rounds 5 and 6, and Pacquiao understandably slowed, and Thurman saw ways to pile up combinations.

This is not the game plan he prefers. “If he gets a lead tonight it’s going to be tough for Manny,” said Kenny Porter, whose son Shawn lost to Thurman in 2016. “Keith is very good at getting ahead and then staying away from you the rest of the time.”

Thurman wasn’t ahead here, but his catchup act was on the verge of working. The 10th round was swaying in the wind.

Then Pacquiao thrust a left hook in Thurman’s ribs that buckled his knees and sent him in a desperate chase for time. Pacquiao tried to capitalize, but Thurman got out of the round to fight another day. Still, that one shot changed the vibe.

“At that point, (trainer) Dan (Birmingham) told me I had to win the rest of the rounds,” Thurman said. “That shot obviously had me in trouble. Without it, maybe I could have gotten closer to a draw. I was able to come back and trade at the end of the round, but at that point it was hard to convince the judges that it was enough.”

Thurman began campaigning for a rematch, a wish he shared with the sellout crowd of 14,356. That is problematic. Pacquiao did say he probably would fight in 2020, but Premier Boxing Champions is setting up a de facto tournament that would match him against the winner of Errol Spence’s matchup with Shawn Porter, set for Staples Center on Sept. 28.

Then the plan, as if plans mean anything in boxing, would be a clash of the welterweight titans between the PBC survivor and Top Rank’s Terence Crawford.

This is not to say Thurman can’t proceed through the “loser’s bracket” and get the fights he wants, and no one would begrudge him that.

“He is very heavy-handed,” Pacquiao said. “I’ve fought a lot of good fighters and he is underestimated. He has a good future.”

The public might demand Pac-Thurman II if the pay-per-view numbers are what Fox envisioned. But if boxing cared what the public demanded, it wouldn’t be boxing.

In the end Thurman landed 210 punches. That’s the most Compubox has calculated for one of Pacquiao’s opponents in 43 fights. He also landed 36.8 percent of his punches to Manny’s 28.4. But Pacquiao’s jab was a constant, finding Thurman 6.83 times per round.

Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, had no interest in the crystal ball.

“Neither one of these guys has anything to prove,” Roach said. “It was a great fight. Now is the time to get some good rest.”

As Pacquiao and Thurman awaken Sunday and feel every imprint of these 12 rounds, they will have little choice.

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