Boxing Classic Manny Pacquiao vs Lehlohonolo Ledwaba

Ringside for this world title bout will be Deborah Barnes, Bill Graham, and Jerry Routh. And when the bell rings, your referee in charge of the action working for the 141st world title bout, Joe Cortez. And now, ladies and gentlemen, 12 rounds of boxing for the IBF Super Phantomweight Championship of the World. Introducing first, fighting out of the blue corner, wearing blue trimmed with gold, and weighing in at 121 pounds. His professional record, 32 victories, including 23 knockouts with only 2 losses. From Kimwabe, Philippines, here is the challenger, the former WBC Super Phantomweight World Champion, Manny Pacquiao. And his opponent across the ring, fighting out of the red corner, wearing white and weighing in at 122 pounds. His professional record, 33 victories, including 22 knockouts with only 1 loss and 1 draw. From Soweto in the New South Africa, presenting the reigning and defending IBF Super Phantomweight Champion of the World, Le Lohanolo Hands of Stone, Ledwama. Alright, gentlemen, we went over the rules in the dressing room. I expect a good, clean fight. Obey my commands at all times. Remember, guys, I'm fair, but I'm firm. Shut your mouth. Pacquiao's co-manager is named Martin Elordi. Elordi is the son of Flash Elordi, the most revered figure in Filipino boxing. If Pacquiao is anywhere near as good as Elordi, we've got a real fight coming up. So it's the southpaw, Pacquiao, against the conventional fighter, Ledwama. And remember, whenever you have this situation, part of the competitive imperative is to get your front foot outside your opponent's front foot. Give you the angle from which to attack. You know, I'd like to think that you should get in there and just fight those guys and forget where your feet are. Make them try to remember where their feet should be. When you start watching out for it, you'll never get a knockout, that's for sure. It's boxing. Boxing. Make them decide. That's exactly what Emmanuel Stewart was saying to me last week about a conventional fighter fighting a southpaw, that too often these things are overanalyzed. It's better to just go fight and put pressure on the southpaw. That's right. Always be in position. When you throw a shot, get your hand in and bring it right back in position quick. There's no such thing as being out of position. Ledwama has an excellent jab. Some conventional fighters tend not to use their jab as much against a southpaw because with that shoulder in front of them, they think they're not going to land it. The opposite side of that coin is go ahead and keep using it with the other guy on the defense. Don't touch with them. They want you to touch and make contact and bring it back with the southpaw. But sting it out there. Make them fearful of it. You may miss a few times, but not as much as you would have... the practice you've done in the ring. I mean, on the punching bag. Pacquiao. Say Pacquiao. Pacquiao should fight here. He shouldn't try to get into a boxing match with this master boxer from South Africa. You got to fight this guy because he knows how to slip, punch, the whole book he has. Yeah, he showed us that in South Africa, where he completely dominated the first nine rounds of the fight against Contreras. But then he seemed to fade a little bit in the last three rounds. Contreras began to land his left hook and give him some trouble yesterday in our fighter meeting. Ledwaba said to us that he had hurt his right hand in the fourth round of that fight. We were unaware of it that particular evening. But you can jump on a boxer like that and keep throwing shots. The more unorthodox, the better for them and you'll never be able to regain it. Blood from Ledwaba's nose. Don't allow him to get into his boxing groove. Then you are in shape trying to box the boxer. In bad shape. Pacquiao landing some hard shots. That's what you got to do. Throw it all out. Manny Pacquiao has landed the harder shots in round one. And now he dominates the last minute of the round with a full-scale attack against Ledwaba. Freddie Roach said to me yesterday, hey look, we have great respect for Ledwaba and we know he's a great boxer. But he won't be able to handle Manny's firepower. Well, he took a beating in that round. Okay, Manny. Very good workout there. I got it, I got it, I got it. Jab, hook, up the middle. You hear me? Okay, see it. When you throw the hook, he's trying to go under the hook. Lift him up with the uppercut. You okay, son? By CompuBox numbers, round one was huge for Pacquiao. He landed 32 out of 82, including 22 out of 40 power shots against Ledwaba's 9 of 28. So we watched Ledwaba get off to a great start down in South Africa. Here he gets off to an uncertain start against Pacquiao's hard punches in round one. And here comes the Filipino fighter again. Ledwaba is going to have to do something to slow down his charge. Because otherwise he's not going to be able to handle his aggression as a boxer. You've got to fight. This far away from home, can't depend on your boxing skills all the time. You've got to fight. You want to fight? The fight is yours. But it's not going to develop like that. You talk about getting old in a hurry. Looks like an old 29 in there against 24-year-old Manny Pacquiao right now. I didn't see the punch. It looked like a short left hand. We'll have to see in the replay. I think it was a bunch of punches. I think it was the whole fuselage. I think it started in the first couple of punches thrown in the first round. Absolutely. I think this guy just hit so hard that Ledwaba is totally on the defensive. Ledwaba came in as a potential star. Right now it looks like Pacquiao may go out as the star. He took this fight on only two weeks notice. Only came here to America ten days ago. And he is banging Ledwaba right now. You've got to fight. A rude awakening for a good master boxer like Ledwaba. There you go. A body shot by Ledwaba. That may change things. He went to the body and that's the most important shot tonight. Right to the body. So Ledwaba momentarily coming alive after having tasted canvas in round two. Having tasted his own blood in round one. This is the time to go to the body if you're Ledwaba. Go to the body and beat in main town pain. And he has suddenly stopped Pacquiao's assault. Now Pacquiao comes back with a body shot of his own. What a fight. They're trading vicious body shots at short range. If he's able to throw it, you can see a different fight. A left hook to the body. Well he's going to get a chance too because Pacquiao is squaring up. Sequence after sequence. All right. Give me water. Give me water. Here's water. Here's water. Our SUTU interpreter in this corner is Abby McKenna. SUTU is the tribal language which is used by Ledwaba and his trainer. All right. How are you doing here? Okay? I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. Ledwaba says I'm okay. Left hook. Give me a left hook. Give me a left hook. Let's see what caused the knockdown directly. All right. Seconds out. Oh yeah. That little left. A little straight left hand that was so short that you could hardly see it. But obviously Ledwaba really felt it. And then a bigger left hand later on. Pacquiao landed 43 of 86 power shots by CompuBox numbers in that round. 46 of 104 punches overall. Ledwaba 23 of 43 including, as George Foreman pointed out, the big right hand body shot that momentarily stopped Pacquiao's assault. Now you don't want to get Pacquiao to start boxing now. Winning this fight was hands down when he was fighting, fighting. Start boxing. This guy can take over things. Don't hesitate. Pacquiao should be jabbing right now. Dial you up and throwing shots. You wait. Pacquiao is asking questions of Ledwaba. He may never have been asked before. And we're trying to see what his responses are. Can he get his feet back? Can he get his head back? Can he turn it around? You can get that left hook to the right side of Pacquiao. That's what his trainer was asking for. You can get that hand down just a little bit. And that's what you want to do. Get his hand down and have him hesitant. Pacquiao throwing that right jab. Trainer Norman Babani bleeding with him as he got up out of his corner between rounds. Roll the left hook. Land the left hook. Pacquiao to the body with an explosive shot. And bleeding badly. He's got to stay on it. He cannot give him a break. Ledwaba does not want a fight. He want a boxing match. So give him a fight. Ledwaba go to the body. Get the air out of this giant. Ledwaba's gloves are smothered in blood. His own blood. And some of it is now appearing all over Pacquiao. Ledwaba has American cut man Cassius Green in his corner. And Green's got a big job in front of him. As the nose is pouring blood. You got to understand, you lose a lot of blood like that. You've been a fighter of your life. You need that strength. Seems like a small amount, but you need every drop of blood you can. And when it's pouring straight out of your nose like that, George, it's bound to come into your mouth. You swallow it. It's a horrible taste. Most importantly, it's coming out of your body. You don't have it reserved to give you oxygen. I don't know what a doctor would say about that. I think you'd say exactly what you're saying. I think you're entirely on target, George. You need every ounce of fluid you can get in an experience like this. All right. Don't blow your nose. Don't blow your nose. That's no good. I want you to start using your fangs and your head movements. All right? Just like in the locker room. You hear me? Now when you fang him, he's going to reach and you open him up. Now go with your straight left hand and the hook behind it. You hear me? There's so much going on in there, George. You think he heard him? You think he could absorb what he heard? No. We'll find out in a minute. Straight left hand, he said, followed by the left hook. Let's see. You got to throw a lot and maybe he'll pick up one. Harold Lederman, how many have it through the first three? Okay, Jim. 30 to 26, three rounds to nothing. Maybe pack you out. Jim, in the second round, of course, you got to give him a 10-8 round, that extra point for the knockdown. That was incredible. It appeared as though Joe Cortez was going to call it no knockdown. He signaled no knockdown. When LaGuaba didn't respond, that's when he picked the count up. He just didn't look. Another thing. Cassius Green is probably using adrenaline chloride, 1 to 1,000, in the nose, and ice on the outside to constrict the blood vessels to stop the bleeding from LaGuaba's nose. Is that legal, Harold? Yes, adrenaline chloride, absolutely legal. 1 to 1,000, ice on the outside, absolutely legal. Yeah, but guess what? It hasn't stopped the bleeding. LaGuaba doing a good job when he holds his ground and throw that straight right hand of his. Shouldn't bend over at all. He's got to stand in position, in the pocket, and throw the right hand. When he does, does a good job of it. Yeah, but so far Pacquiao has landed more power shots than LaGuaba has been able to throw punches. So it's a CompuBox wipeout. There's a big left hand for LaGuaba. But here comes Pacquiao again. LaGuaba stands his ground and just throw the right hand, the guy right there in front of him. Just the straight right hands now. There it is. There you go. But you want about 4 or 5 of those, and then you come back with the hook before you decide to clean it out. Can't reach out for it as LaGuaba's doing. You got to let him just fall into it. Now LaGuaba seizes the initiative. Starts firing his jab. Boy, Pacquiao's quick on the trigger, George. You know, he shouldn't allow LaGuaba to get set again. He's got to throw a shot, throw a shot, feint him, feint him, throw a shot, throw a shot. Don't allow him to think. His corner told LaGuaba not to blow his nose, and he's doing it anyway. Pretty hard not to do it, isn't it? You just, certain things you just got to do, whether they're hard or not. When your nose is all stocked up with blood and you can't breathe, it's a natural instinct. You can go against it. Guy from the Philippines, guy from South Africa, giving us a hell of a fight. And Pacquiao wobbles LaGuaba again with a hard punch at the end of the round. Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. Deep breath, Manny. All right, here you go, son. Stay right here. Okay, Manny, listen to me. Okay, you got to start following this man. You got to cut the ring off for me, okay? Okay, don't follow him, not yet. I want more head movement, okay? Don't stand right in front of this man. Manny, look at Manny. A little head movement, okay? All right? Just like your face. You know better than that, right? Be smart. You hear me? Good head movement. Keep it going. Breathe, breathe. The veteran trainer speaking to Galag in Manny Pacquiao's corner is Ben Delgado, who's been his trainer throughout his professional career. Delgado now gracefully stepping back to number two to allow Freddie Roach to take over because they think Roach can take him to another level. Ledwaba is called Hands of Stone, which, of course, originated with Roberto Duran. Pacquiao is the one who seems to have the rocks in his gloves. They told him to move his head a little bit. I don't know if that's smart, Pacquiao. Why? Because this guy starts aiming on you. You move his head, and he can hit you, Ledwaba. That's what he prefers, a guy boxing and moving and weaving. Knows exactly what to do, but if you get wild on him like Pacquiao's been doing, he has no defense. Just keep throwing punches. Make him move out of your way. Pacquiao got away with a low blow. Joe Cortez was blocked from seeing it. Freddie Roach also told his fighter, don't follow Ledwaba around. Cut off the ring instead. Ledwaba has not attacked, put on any kind of attack at all. You got to make the youngster back away. One of the hardest things to do in boxing, seize the initiative against a strong punching opponent when you're getting rocked. That's the challenge that has faced Ledwaba for these five rounds. You got to go on attack at some point or another. The guy's gonna try to cover up or something. Just stay with it. Then you make him respect you, and then you can get your left jab and all those things working. Pacquiao's grinning in there because it's been fun for him to pepper Ledwaba with power punches over and over. Yeah, he's caught this guy, Ledwaba, by surprise, and that's all there is to it. And in response to Pacquiao's low blow earlier in the round, Ledwaba reaches out with a low blow of his own. But Cortez saw that one and said, keep it up. Ledwaba's trying to use his jab, but he's got to make Pacquiao lower his head just a little bit. Jab him to the body three or four times, and then come up. Ledwaba getting a little bit more adept at ducking and slipping away from Pacquiao's power shots. Hasn't yet found the right offense to go behind that. That's what Pacquiao's got to do. Keep throwing the shots, Pacquiao. Keep the punching on. You can't allow this guy to get his balance going, get back on you. There are so many southpaw cuties in the lower weight classes. There aren't that many southpaw punchers with mustard. Pacquiao is fun to watch. Give me water. Give me some water. Don't blow, champ. Don't blow. Okay? Okay. One, two, three. You hear me? Tom, you're a champion. Don't get him in the stomach. Take it easy. Give him some water. More water. Don't hurry up. Our Tagalog interpreter in Pacquiao's corner is Ernie Kalua. So from time to time, you'll hear Ernie Kalua interpreting Tagalog in Pacquiao's corner. And from time to time, you'll hear Abby McKenna interpreting Supu over in Ledwaba's corner. English is spoken in both corners as well. It's confusing. Ledwaba corner's got to pay some strict attention now. If this guy doesn't pick up, turn his fight around, call it a day. Mercy. He's been caught by surprise. He's a good fighter. He had no idea. Pacquiao may take care of it. When have you ever seen a fighter say, I'm not okay? There's a weariness and almost a resignation in the eyes of Ledwaba. Yeah, and Joe Cortez has seen enough. That's a TKO victory for the very impressive Manny Pacquiao, who takes a good fighter and just takes him apart with power shots. Pacquiao took the fight on two weeks' notice. Ledwaba thought he was going to be fighting against a fighter named Enrique Sanchez. As George said, he got surprised here. I think Pacquiao established himself as a crowd-pleasing entry into the featherweight division tonight. I had never seen him. I frankly had never heard of him. But I've seen and heard of him now. And you want to see him again. I want to see him again. I do too. After we saw Ledwaba in South Africa, we said to ourselves, well, let's see him again. He looked really good. Now let's see Pacquiao again. That was some performance. So a world title belt for Manny Pacquiao as he lifts it away from Lecenola Ledwaba. There's the first knockdown, straight left hand. It's a quarter to five in the morning in Soweto, where Ledwaba is from. There is no joy in Soweto Sunday morning. And here's the second knockdown. And as Larry, as you said, at the beginning of the round, there was a weariness about Ledwaba. He began the round... It wasn't a weariness. The guy was out. He went to his corner. The previous round, out. Yeah, you pointed that out. I pointed it out to you. He was walking on little shuffle feet. There was nothing in his eyes but sleep. Yep. Well, and a certain resignation that it wasn't going to get any better. Yep. Oh, when you go to your corner and you can't see, you don't have any resignation. Oh, you are resigned. Period. Night lights out. Yep. Well, I would have kept him down. In the corner after round 5 because of the way he walked back there. Because he took a huge shot at the end of the 5th round. He didn't know where he was. No, I don't think you can do that with a terrific champion. You hope that he can pull himself together and you pay respect to him if he wants to go on because what happens after this? He didn't know where he was two points ago. Hey, let's go up to ring announcer Michael Buffer and pay honor to Manny Pacquiao. Ladies and gentlemen, at 59 seconds of round number 6, referee Joe Cortez, following the second knockdown, waves off the count and calls a halt to the bout. The winner by knockout victory and now a two-time world champion. He is now the reigning IBF super badminton weight champion of the world, Manny Pacquiao. You know, I said before this fight, guys, that if he was anywhere near as good as Fletch or Woody, we would really see something.