LAS VEGAS – The concluding chapter to the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez rivalry will just have to wait.

Not with the way their third fight ended under a cloud of controversy for the third time.

Pacquiao again beat Marquez by a majority decision in a highly-competitive,  closely-fought match to retain his World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight crown on Saturday night.

Sleek and fast despite the extra weight he gained, Marquez, 38, countered beautifully for the most part of the 12-round title bout, repeatedly punishing Pacquiao with his hard straight rights that staggered the champion a couple of times.

But Pacquiao took the best the Mexican challenger could give, relentlessly and aggressively charging Marquez like a raging bull and pounding him with those lethal left of his that knocked Marquez down four times in their two previous meetings.

There was no knockdown this time, although Pacquiao, 32, had to win the final round in two of the judges’ scorecards to pull off the dramatic victory that was greeted by a chorus of boos from a sell-out crowd of 16,368 at the Grand Garden Arena of the MGM.

Two of the judges (Dave Moretti and Glenn Trowbridge) scored the fight for Pacquiao, 115-113 and 116-122, while the other had it a draw at 114-114.

“Yes, it was clear to me that I won,” declared Pacquiao, whose post-fight interview atop the ring had to be put off for a few minutes as his voice was drowned by the incessant jeering of the crowd and a few incident of bottle- and- can- throwing at ringside.

“The fans are fans of Marquez, and I understand how they feel,” said Pacquiao, now 54-3-2, with 38 KOs, and $22 million richer.

“But I blocked a lot of his punches. He headbutted me a lot, and his headbutt hurt me,” added the boxing pride of the Philippines, who sported a cut on his upper lip and a 28-inch stitch to close a cut on his right eye that was caused by an accidental head-butt by the Mexican.

For Marquez, though, the bitter loss was reminiscent of the 2008 rematch he had with Pacquiao, who escaped with a razor-thin split decision.

Only this one was a lot worse.

“This is the second robbery of the two fights we had,” said the Mexican, who confidently raised his right hand and went over the top rope to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd shortly after the final bell rang. “I think I won this fight clearly. I landed the clearer punches.”

“This is robbery of the utmost,” added Ignacio `Nacho’ Beristain, Marquez’s long-time trainer. “I am very frustrated and I thought it was a joke.”

Marquez did land some of the most effective punches during the fight that featured back-and-forth action, but punchstats provided by CompuBox had Pacquiao clearly dominating his long-time rival.

The 32-year-old southpaw out-connected Marquez in power punches (117-100), landed more jabs (59-38), and had a 176-138 edge in total punches.

“Whatever that means, that’s Compubox,” said Top Rank chairman Bob Arum as he doesn’t mince any words about making a fourth fight between two of boxing’s most intriguing rivals by May of 2012.

“I’m bound to determine and find a definitive winner once and for all,” he said. “We’ll look for a rematch if both fighters agree (in May 2012).”

Pacquiao said he’s open to give Marquez a rematch, but the Mexican, who fell to 53-6-1, with 39 KOs, said he’d rather take a rest first after going through a tough, two-month training camp that saw him add muscles and gained weight to make this third meeting possible.

“I want to spend time with my family first,” said Marquez, whose right eye is almost swollen shut after the constant pounding from Pacquiao’s deadly left hand.

Marquez earned $5 million, the biggest paycheck of his boxing career.