Pacquiao is crowned World Champion!

Marquez vs Pacquiao

Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao is the WBC super featherweight champion of the world.

The Filipino stole the world title from Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez, leaning on a third round knockdown and a late charge in the match to win by split decision.

Dwayne Ford had it 115-112 while Tom Miller scored it 114-113 both for Pacquiao. Jerry Roth had it 115-112 for Juan Manuel Marquez.

The difference in a bout when both men were bloodied but traded hard punches to the finish proved to be a third-round knockdown inflicted by Pacquiao, who improved to 46-3 with two draws.

"I did my best. I'm happy because I won," Pacquiao said. "Marquez is a really hard opponent. I expected the fight was going to be hard. He moved fast. He had head movement and more counterpunches."

Marquez, fell to 48-4.

Pacquiao knocked down Marquez three times in the first round of their first meeting but the Mexican collected himself and rallied for a draw as one judge scored the bout for each fighter and the third saw the bout as a draw.

The 29 year old Filipino supertstar, won his seventh fight in a row and improved to 20-1 since 1999, his lone loss a 2005 decision to Mexican Erik Morales. Marquez, 34, has lost only twice in that span, the other time in 2006 to Indonesian Chris John.

Pacquiao is expected to move up to the lightweight division and challenge US fighter David Diaz, the WBC lightweight champion who improved to 34-1-1 with a majority decision win over Mexican Ramon Montano in a non-title undercard bout.

Pacquiao was expected to receive nearly $5 million from the pay-per-view battle with Marquez taking home about $1.5 million.