The "It" Factor

There was an excellent article by Lee Groves The “It” Factor and How It Fits Pacquiao-Clottey It describes well the Cus D'Amato concept that, above all, boxing tests a man's will. My one criticism of the article is that, at times, it seems to confuse fame outside the ring with what it takes to prevail inside the ring.

He couldn’t have become what he is, however, without first having It at his disposal during combat. Pacquiao’s immense physical tools are amplified by an inborn thirst for confrontation that pushes him into realms normal humans can’t – or are not willing to – experience.

At the same time, he pushes his opponents – even those who also possess a greater measure of valor than most – past the breaking point in terms of pain tolerance and willingness to press onward. It is one thing to break the will of an ordinary man, but another to do the same thing to a fellow athlete – one that is also intimately familiar with the intricacies of waging battle with another athlete.

Pacquiao showed that ferocity in the foul-filled war with Nedal Hussein nearly 10 years ago, where it would have been easy to succumb to frustration Hussein’s resistance and tactics would normally engender.

He demonstrated It by overcoming an early deficit in his second fight with Erik Morales to post a spectacular 10th round TKO that vaulted him toward the pound-for-pound stratosphere.

He even showed It in fights where he didn’t win – the first Morales fight in which he fought many rounds blinded by blood as well as holding off a surging Juan Manuel Marquez in their initial encounter that resulted in a draw.

...

When sizing up the fight, one can’t ignore that there’s a difference – however slight – between fighters who are merely very good and those who achieve true greatness. That crucial It factor separates boxing’s wheat and chaff and when it came time for Clottey to rise up and stamp himself as a genuine great he showed he didn’t have It.

His first failed opportunity came in December 2006 in Atlantic City against then-WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito.

In the first four rounds Clottey’s piercing jabs and accurate hooks scored often and his high guard made life difficult for the defending champ. He landed the harder, snappier blows while the notoriously slow-starting Margarito maintained a prodigious, but largely ineffective, work rate.

Clottey proved in the fight’s opening acts that his working parts were superior. Then the time came to test the internal combustion.

That test came in the fifth when Margarito turned on the jets and forced Clottey to play defense. More importantly, Clottey broke his left hand sometime during the round – a hand he said was injured a couple of weeks earlier in training – and with that a major offensive weapon was removed from the equation.

Discouraged, Clottey dramatically curtailed his output and for that he paid the price. In the ninth he was swept under by a ceaseless torrent of blows, in the 10th he was booed as he rode his bicycle for the entire round and in the 11th and 12th he could not conjure the charge he needed to negate Margarito’s second-half surge.

A normal human would have withdrawn from the contest long before but – fair or not – boxers are held to a higher standard, both by the public and by fellow members of the fraternity. Margarito entered the bout with an ankle injury and revealed afterward that he believed he fractured his right wrist in the fifth round – the same round that Clottey sustained his injury.

Unlike Clottey, Margarito increased his pressure and punched through the pain to the tune of 1,193 punches thrown to Clottey’s 269 from round five onward. On this night, Margarito won a lopsided decision because he had what “It” took to exit the ring a winner.