Did Pacman win the fight?

The Philippines was upset when Pacquiao lost the fight to Bradley, but then we see Pacman as a hero, and a symbol of our country.

So complaining he lost is sour grapes, right?

Except now the same thing is being noted on ESPN and other boxing sites.

Andreas Hale at Fight News:

t to make sense of the loss after Pacquiao was up on most journalists’ scorecards by a wide margin was the truly baffling part. Some had it as wide as 119-109 and other had it 116-112 (FightNews scored it the latter) but nobody had Timothy Bradley winning a split decision against Manny Pacquiao to take his WBO welterweight title. Two scores of 115 -113 in favor of Pacquiao and one score of 115-113 for Bradley sounded outlandish after we witnessed what appeared to be a strong performance by Pacquiao.

WBO to review fight (ESPN)

The vast majority of observers had Pacquiao clearly winning the fight, many in lopsided fashion. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who promotes both fighters, was outraged and has called on the Nevada attorney general to inquire about the scoring.

an ESPN BLOG: 5 things we learned about PacBradley

in the eyes of the great majority of observers, he didn't just beat Timothy Bradley Jr., he dominated him. This wasn't even comparable to Pacquiao's disputed wins over Juan Manuel Marquez, which almost everyone agrees were both at least close. To be fair, although there were some isolated dissenters ringside who gave Saturday's fight to Bradley, the great majority saw it as at least a 116-112 win for Pacquiao -- and plenty reckoned it was wider than that. (I scored it 117-111; ESPN.com's Dan Rafael and HBO's unofficial official, Harold Lederman, scored it 119-109.) In the immediate aftermath, before the scores were announced, even Bradley didn't seem to think he had won.

ESPN Boxing: Bradley's win is Mayweather's gain

Here's an unintended and unexpected consequence of Timothy Bradley's farcical win over Manny Pacquiao: The biggest winner is a guy sitting in a jail cell..
Everything that needed to be said about the decision has already been said. Was it rigged? Unlikely, but you can't discount the possibility...More likely, though, the decision was the result of rank incompetence, a series of honest mistakes. And if you watched the fight, it's more difficult to believe the judges could have been this bad. So difficult, in fact, that it takes far less imagination to believe there was something funny happening. That's how conspiracy theorists get that way.

Wikipedia has the round by round estimates of the judges, but also notes (and names) most of those watching the fight chose Pacquiao.

The UKGuardian:

imothy Bradley was outboxed and outpowered by Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Saturday night, yet was somehow awarded a split decision that again shocked the boxing world. It was a verdict that disgusted many of the assembled experts ringside and virtually all of a heavily pro-Pacquiao crowd.,,,
Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis tweeted: "Unbelievable! #PacBradley This is another stain on boxing. Even worse than my draw with Holyfield! #Disgraceful."

Badlefthook quotes Roth defending his call, but then ends the discussion:

Roth also believes that anyone scoring the fight 11-1 (119-109) was way off-base:

(Roth)"I'm completely surprised at anybody that could score the fight 11-1. I don't know how they could've done something like that. We judge round by round. We sit there for three minutes, judge the round and give the scores to the referee and that's it. We don't talk about in the fourth round how we scored the third round or talk to people to our left or to our right, we're concentrating on that fight and that fight only. How anybody could see that fight so one-sided is beyond me. I just can't fathom that somebody could see such a fight so one-sided."

Personally, even though I feel Manny definitely won the fight, my take after a few viewings was that a 9-3 or 8-4 Pacquiao card seemed about right. I do believe that 11-1 is overboard. When folks say, "To score it 7-5 for Bradley, you have to give him every single close round," or the like, I think of 11-1 as giving Pacquiao every single benefit of the doubt in every close round. So what's the difference there, other than the right guy would have won if they all called it 119-109? There are at least two clear-cut Bradley rounds in that fight. If wrong is wrong, then wrong is wrong, you know what I mean? You know what I'm saying?

from The Atlantic magazine:

God works in mysterious ways, they say, but no one seemed to understand what happened in the MGM Grand on Saturday night when Pacquiao fought better than he had in several fights, but lost because of an inexplicable judges' decision, his first defeat in seven years. There was a lesson in there somewhere, but Pacquiao decided not to bring God into it this time.
"The religion is about my personal life," he said. "This is boxing—it's a sport."

 More from the Mercury news...

No, Lolo watched the fight, but I didn't follow it closely and I don't know if this is a kerfuffle so that managers can make more money on the rematch or if something is rotten in Las Vegas.