Sung through him, Muse

LAS VEGAS – Sitting ringside at Madison Square Garden in June, the image of Miguel Cotto’s swollen and torn face still fresh, most writers would have picked Manny Pacquiao to beat Cotto decisively. The next five months talked many of us out of it. Such are the powers of time and promotion.

After sitting ringside at MGM Grand on Saturday night, I would now pick Floyd Mayweather Jr. to beat Pacquiao when (if) they fight. We’ll see what effect the next 150 days take. I’ll explain in a bit.

Saturday brought another coronation for Pacquiao – a man who will be remembered as the defining prizefighter of his era, whatever happens next. He buzzed through Miguel Cotto, overpowered the larger man, made him run for 15 minutes and finished the night by convincing referee Kenny Bayless to stop the match 55 seconds into the final round. Pacquiao: TKO-12.

This was the main event of 2009. An impressive one. But because the favorite never trailed after the first round, the underdog never mounted a comeback and the match was all waxing and no waning, it didn’t provide the same catharsis as the last time Cotto fought in MGM Grand. Even if the result was similar.

Las Vegas is no longer flush. Neither is the state of Nevada; neither is any one of its 49 companions. Everything has always been for sale in Vegas – a fact that charms you and makes you noxious. Now, everything is deeply discounted. But the tourists have done an admirable job of keeping up. You can no longer walk any casino floor on the Strip and discern which ladies are professionals. That’s an aesthetic judgment, not a moral one.

Onto this desperate stage strode Manny Pacquiao with his customary grin. The product of a culture that champions stature through acts and abhors self-aggrandizement. He was, as always, refreshing to behold. But Miguel Cotto was a better metaphor for the host city: Competent to stunned to distressed to worried about survival.

Cotto began Saturday’s match so effectively. The supposedly sluggish man surprised Pacquiao – as he’d surprised Shane Mosley – with a quick and accurate jab. Three, four, five times, Pacquiao’s head snapped backwards. Cotto landed left hooks aplenty, too. What did you think Pacquiao’s fedora-over-bandaged-right-ear garb was about after the fight? Cotto went forward, composed, assertive, controlled.

Then he came out his defensive shell and engaged Pacquiao in the maniacal-combo game. And that was that.

Pacquiao’s awkwardness, more than even his speed, is the source of his power. Most of what gets called “chin” is a matter of preparedness. That is, if you knew when and where Manny Pacquiao was going to hit you, you too could remain upright. You would gird for it, instinctively raise your shoulders, lower your chin and set your neck to absorb the blow. How, then, do championship prizefighters, better at taking punches than the rest of us are at anything, get felled time and again by Pacquiao?

The secret could be seen in the little left cross Pacquiao threw from his southpaw stance in the closing seconds of round four. Did you recognize it? Betcha Juan Manuel Marquez did. Same punch that dropped him in the third round of his second fight with Pacquiao. And dropped Cotto too – dropped him in a way from which he wouldn’t have recovered had the punch come in the opening seconds of the fourth.

Thrown off-balance and almost thoughtlessly, Pacquiao’s left cross was nine parts ferocity, one part execution. It was thrown faithfully: The longer this exchange goes, the more chances for us to land hard on one another. And I never lose that game.

It changed everything about Cotto. A few minutes later, the pride of Puerto Rico was bouncing, circling, jabbing. Running, in other words. The 2:50 mark of every round, punctuated by the scorekeeper’s green plastic clapper, found no Cotto fan exhaling. How many left hands might Pacquiao get off in the next 10 seconds before the bell? A hundred? A thousand?

Yet Cotto managed. Spent after the sixth, his knees buckling by the end of each round, Cotto kept Pacquiao from finishing him. Cotto hadn’t, in fact, been dropped on the canvas in 19 minutes when referee Bayless intervened.

Now imagine Cotto’s circling away – and how it frustrated Pacquiao, who simply stopped chasing him at times in rounds nine, 10 and 11 – from the opening bell. Imagine a fighter able to make tighter circles and never tire doing it. A fighter who refuses to play Pacquiao’s maniacal-combo game. Imagine Marco Antonio Barrera, whose survival act against Pacquiao two Octobers ago now ages well, being 25 pounds heavier and twice as quick.

Imagine that guy as Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Oops. Didn’t mean to interrupt the post-fight party. Certainly didn’t mean to imply anyone who cares about boxing should cheer Money May. Didn’t even mean to assert the fight will happen.

Back to the coronation. After the fight, Pacquiao was his usual gracious self, but more assertive. He was willing to say unscripted things. Maybe this is a function of his increasing comfort with English. Or maybe it’s part of his evolution as a global superstar. I mean, “even the New York Times was there!” – as the rest of us heard a little too often.

But Pacquiao’s dignity this time was seasoned with some defiance. From his happy post-fight admission that he ignored his corner’s instructions by playing rope-a-dope with Cotto, to his repeated promotional detours – “I will be playing with my band at Mandalay Bay after this, but you have to buy a ticket” – he is now as much the boss in the U.S. as he is in the Philippines.

He finished the press conference by singing a somewhat ironical verse about romantic fidelity, then hurried off to his next performance. If Saturday marked the apex of Pacquiao’s career, it also marked the apex of this boxing era.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter.com/bartbarry

Photo By Chris Farina / Top Rank