Could Marquez have beaten Pacquiao if his corner hadn't told him he was ahead?

Henno30

The major turning point in this (3rd) fight was at the end of the 9th round when JMM's trainer Nacho Beristain tells him he's way ahead, and now he just has to make sure he doesn't get caught with anything. This wasn't an unreasonable conclusion, as in the other corner Freddie Roach is already telling Manny that he's going to need a knockout.

After the end of that 9th round, I have Pacquiao winning every remaining round in the fight. He still doesn't land anything, but Marquez clearly goes into safety mode and stops throwing from then on and Pacquiao clearly outworks him. For me, Marquez is 7-2 (88-83) ahead at this point, and has as Nacho believes won the fight. However, the judges cards are what matter so here they are:




At the end of Rd 9, Robert Hoyle has it 85-86, Dave Moretti has it 86-85, and Glenn Trowbridge has it 87-84.

Now re-watching the fight (as you can do here), those cards are batsh*t insane. However, what I ask you to consider is whether or not Marquez could have won this fight anyway, if he had maintained his pace for the last three rounds?

As you can see, each judge scores the final three rounds 2-1 Pacquiao, although interestingly they each give Marquez a different round. Bizarrely, Glenn Trowbridge gives round 12 to Marquez despite Marquez doing absolutely nothing in that round. What this clearly indicates is Trowbridge's sheer embarrassment at scoring a fight 117-111 to Manny Pacquiao in a fight where he barely lands a clean shot. I don't think there were any circumstances in which Trowbridge was going to give Marquez this fight, but could Robert Hoyle and Dave Moretti have done so? Or was this merely a cynical exercise in arithmetic where the result was pre-determined?