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Pacquiao falls, Marquez vindicated

It was a vindication.

After knocking him down in the third round, Juan Manuel Marquez proved that he indeed has what it takes to beat Manny Pacquiao, knocking out the Filipino icon with just one second left in the sixth round and sending an entire nation into shock.

Pacquiao walked straight into a right hand, which knocked him out cold, a rare sight for the Filipino champ.

Fans and friends were shocked. Wife Jinkee, in tears, was also seen rushing to the corner after Manny slumped to the floor.

"He got me good. That's boxing," Pacquiao who admitted he got over confident when he also knocked down Marquez on the fifth. "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."

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He says he will go back to training, and he will go back to fighting.

Promoter Bob Arum says he may schedule a fifth fight. "Why not," he said in an interview.

The fight lived up to its hype, with both boxers, who were meeting for the fourth time, not shy about pulling the trigger early on. Pacquiao won the first two rounds comfortably before Marquez, who had previously been knocked down four times by his Filipino nemesis, finally scored a knockdown of his own, tagging Pacquiao with a right that and sending him down.

With renewed confidence, Marquez went on to dominate the fourth round before Pacquiao dramatically turned things around in the fifth, flooring Marquez with a left hook to completely change the momentum of the bout. Pacquiao tried to finish off his foe, launching several combinations and getting Marquez in trouble, but he ran out of time.

In the sixth, Pacquiao was still the aggressor as he seemed to have caught his second wind. He was on his way to winning the round when Marquez caught him a vicious right that sent him crashing to the canvass. The blow was so powerful that Pacquiao was knocked out cold for a few minutes, and his body could be seen twitching as he lay face down.

It was Pacquiao's second straight loss after a controversial split decision defeat at the hands of Timothy Bradley last June. It was also his first knockout loss in 13 years.

It wasn't a good night for two other Filipino fighters who were going for world titles on the undercard as Mercito Gesta and Michael Farenas both dropped unanimous decisions to Miguel Vazquez and Yuriorkis Gamboa, respectively. But Ernie Sanchez won a unanimous decision over Coy Evans in an eight-rounder, while Dodie Boy Penalosa, Jr. knocked out Jesus Lule in the second round of a scheduled four-rounder.