The boxing world received quite a hit last week when respected trainer Nazeem Richardson spoke about lightweight champion Juan “Dinamita” Manuel Marquez in an interview. Nazeem, trainer of veterans Shane Mosley and Bernard Hopkins, stated that Marquez is no doubt one of the best fighters of the current era and that Juan may even be a better boxer than his nemesis and pound for pound number one fighter in the world Manny Pacquiao.
No one can reasonably dispute Richardson’s knowledge of the game as he’s been around the sports for many, many years and has recently guided his charge Bernard Hopkins to a history making win over ex champ Jean Pascal; making the 46 year old Hopkins the oldest fighter ever to win a major championship.
But to declare that Marquez (or any current fighter for that matter) is a greater skilled boxer than the lightning quick and amazingly accurate Pacquiao is a major statement for anyone to make.
Everyone knows about the rivalry between these two men; back in 2004 Juan and Manny battled to a thrilling draw for the featherweight championship and more recently in 2008 Marquez dropped a split decision to Pacquiao for the super featherweight title in a very close battle. These two will engage each other again later this year at welterweight on November 12 in order to finally clear any doubt on who is the better man.
Since 2006 Marquez has lost twice, to the top two fighters in the sport in Floyd Mayweather and the close contest with Pacquiao.
In that time he has won titles in three weight divisions (featherweight, super featherweight & lightweight) and has beaten credible opponents Marco Antonio Barrera, Rocky Juarez, Joel Casamayor, Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz (twice) and Michael Katsidis. Marquez has found this major success in the ring by landing excellently timed counter shots on his opponents and breaking them down with a beautiful mix of body-head attacks after his somewhat slow starts.
Juan has established himself as a top tier boxer and pound for pound top ten fighter with these performances. What Juan lacks in natural speed and power he makes up in strategy, timing and precision. His losses to Floyd and Manny (particularly his washout points loss to Floyd) has kept Juan from getting that career defining win that pushes him to the absolute top of the sport. He has for the majority of his career been given the “second best” tag and has almost been labelled into a Tommy Hearns and Fernando Vargas brand of fighter; where he can absolutely dominate the average to good fighters out there but is missing an element that enables him to hang with the very best.
I personally have noticed a trend with Marquez that makes me very interested in his upcoming clash with Manny. What I have noticed is that whenever Juan goes down in a fight, he seems to get stronger. Manny famously knocked him down three times into their first encounter but Marquez was able to salvage a draw after adjusting to Pacman’s deadly attacks and countering him with crisp shots to the head. In their second fight Marquez went down early on in the fight again but was able to adjust this time as well and went on to score clean shots against Manny before losing the hotly contested split decision that many experts and fans had him winning.
In addition to his brawls with the Pacman, Marquez was also dropped by Mayweather but Floyd was unable to finish him off.
Against Katsidis, Juan went down yet again early on but came back very strong and knocked out his foe later on in the fight.
These situations combined with the fact that Juan has never been knocked out before has me very curious to see what happens once he steps in the ring with the new and improved Manny. Since their last meeting Pacquiao has gone on to knock down men much bigger than Juan such as Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley, as well as busting up taller and heavier boxers such as Oscar De La Hoya and Antonio Margarito.
Therefore something will have to give when they meet up; either Juan will finally fall completely to Manny’s now devastating power or he will once again prove that he will not stay down for anyone; and will only hit you with stronger firepower if you hurt him.
The time is now for Marquez to make the leap from number two to number one. Even though the fight will be at welterweight, where Juan has only fought once with lackluster results, he cannot use that excuse at this point in time as this is sure to be his final meeting with Pacquiao if he once again comes up short against the Filipino warrior. I don’t see him ever fighting Mayweather again so in all likelihood this could be his last shot to prove himself as the best in the world and get that “second best” tag off of him.
I personally feel that the fight is more about whether Manny will be able to be the first one to finish Marquez before the bell or not more so than Juan being able to win, but Juan has earned the right to step inside the ring and have the opportunity to show the world what he believes; that he is the more skilled fighter of the two champions and he has what it takes to get that elusive win over his arch-enemy. Despite what Nazeem Richardson or anyone says in terms of how great of a fighter he is, Juan Marquez will come face to face with thunderous lightning on November 12 and he will have to prove to the world that he has the explosive “Dinamita” in his arsenal to combat it.
Source: http://3morerounds.com
Posted in: 
