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Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez, round three

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Even though Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez have fought twice before, their score remains unsettled.

The fighters’ 2004 featherweight title bout resulted in a draw. When they met again in 2008, Pacquiao won a super-featherweight title by split decision, thanks to judge Tom Miller’s 114-113 score in favor of Pacquiao.

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Marquez thinks he was robbed.

The fighters and their posses gathered at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Wednesday to promote their third fight which will be held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on November 12.

‘This is the answer of all the doubts of the past two fights with Marquez,’ Pacquiao said.

That is perhaps the one thing the fighters agree upon.

‘I don’t like the decision for the last two fights,’ Marquez said. ‘The Mexican people around the world tell me, ‘You won the fight.’’

Marquez said his speed and strength have improved and he feels confident he will win.

Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach weighed in on the debate.

‘Manny is a completely different fighter, a more complete fighter than he was back then,’ Roach said.

Roach said Pacquiao’s strategy will be to avoid Marquez’s counter-punches by not being overly aggressive.

‘This fight is a little more personal because Marquez did come to the Philippines in a press tour with T-shirts that said, ‘We got robbed.’

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‘It was a slap in the face to Manny and he will get payback for that,’ Roach said.

Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum called Marquez the ‘greatest counter-puncher that I’ve seen.’

‘It probably is the one thing in boxing that takes the most skill,’ Arum said. ‘You have to allow your opponent to throw a punch at you and hit him in such a way and at such an angle with the counter that it reaches the opponent before his punch reaches you. That is hard and it takes nerves of steel.’

On the other hand, Arum that Pacquiao is ‘all aggression.’

‘He’s a fighter that takes his fight to the opponent,’ he said. ‘He is the antithesis of a defensive fighter.’

-- Melissa Rohlin

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