By Jason Kim: In an interview at the boxing site Fight Hype, trainer Freddie Roach had little good to say about next month’s bout between Juan Manuel Marquez and Floyd Mayweather Jr., saying “They’ve already given up on pay-per-view audiences. They know it’s not going to sell well.”
Roach, no doubt, is speculating based on rumors about the fight not doing well in ticket sales. It’s still not clear yet whether this fight will do well on PPV or not, because the HBO Mayweather-Marquez 24/7 series hasn’t started yet, and that may be all that it takes for this fight to explode with the casual fans.
It’s not as if there’s any alternative bouts next month to compete for the boxing dollars for fans. The only real competition that the Mayweather-Marquez fight has is the UFC 103 event, which will be taking place on the same night. That, however, is a completely different sport and the effects of that fight card taking place on the same night as the Mayweather vs. Marquez fight may end up being negligible.
Roach says “There styles don’t match up,” referring to the fact that Mayweather and Marquez are both counter punchers. Roach thinks that this will lead to the fight ending up in a dull match with neither fighter taking many chances on offense. I can see what Roach is saying, but I think he’s dead wrong about this as well.
Both Marquez and Mayweather have been much more offensively minded as of late. Marquez may have been more prone to counter punching in his fight with Manny Pacquiao, but that’s only because he was facing a dangerous puncher and he didn’t want to get knocked down or out by Pacquiao.
Since that fight, Marquez has looked much better on offense in fights against Joel Casamayor and Juan Diaz. The same goes for Mayweather. He looked bad against the bigger and stronger Carlos Baldomir, but Mayweather looked a whole better offensively against Ricky Hatton in Mayweather’s last fight in December 2007. I think it comes down to their opponents. Sure, Mayweather and Marquez can counter punch at times, but they mostly do this against dangerous punchers and are a lot more bold when facing opponents that they have little to fear from.
To listen to Roach speak, it seems as if he’s hoping the Mayweather-Marquez fight does do poorly for some reason. Why he would want this is unknown. Logically, it doesn’t make sense at all. If it does poorly, Mayweather’s reputation will be hurt in the boxing community, and this in turn will have a negative effect on a Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight down the road.
Roach should be hoping that the fight does well, because it would mean that Mayweather is still a huge box office star and would be the perfect opponent for a big money fight against Roach’s fighter Manny Pacquiao sometime in 2010. It almost looks as if Roach may be jealous about the Marquez-Mayweather fight, perhaps because while that fight is being hyped, the Cotto vs. Pacquiao bout has to take a backseat. There’s other fighters out there besides Manny Pacquiao.
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