Instead, Marquez boxed Pacquiao the way Floyd Mayweather Jr. had boxed Marquez. But while Mayweather won that fight handily, Marquez did not win this one. Pacquiao did, by majority decision, “majority” meaning on two of the three judges’ scorecards, not in the sold-out stands at the MGM Grand, where the fans clearly disagreed.

Roach said he had wanted Pacquiao to move right more as he stalked Marquez around the ring, instead of falling into Marquez’s trap by bobbing left almost exclusively. On the folding table, and later at the news conference, Roach insisted Pacquiao had won. Again. He seemed certain, but he knew others most certainly were not.

“I’m still nervous,” he said when asked how he felt before the decision was announced.

After the cut was closed, Pacquiao climbed off the table, looked in the mirror and shadowboxed with a small bandage above his right eye. Already, talk had turned to another fight between the men, a fourth chance to find a definitive winner, once and for all, or perhaps to never find one.

Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank Boxing, said he wanted to hold the fourth bout in early May. Pacquiao’s adviser, Michael Koncz, said such talk was premature.

“Come on, we just finished the fight,” he said, sounding slightly annoyed as he supervised the stitching. “We’ll look at our options a couple weeks down the road.”

Then, to Pacquiao: “You look as good as you did before, champ.”

Pacquiao combed his hair, changed into a dress shirt and sang in the front of the mirror. Someone held his fedora for him. Someone else held his water bottle. Cuts covered his torso, his arms, even the back of his neck. “I’m from Scotland,” he said in a British accent, and he smiled, but it was a wary smile, a painful smile, the less-than-definitive win still hovering over the locker room and dulling the mood.