By Chris Williams: In an article from Mike Markey at Boxing Confidential, he says that general mood of things aren’t going well in the camp of Juan Manuel Marquez as he prepares for his September 19th fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. According to Marley, Marquez’s trainer Nacho Beristain isn’t happy with the lack of sparring partners for Marquez, specifically one that can fight in the same manner as Mayweather.
“Nacho has complained about not having any Mayweather style sparring also. Nacho is thrifty himself but he views promoter Golden Boy as thriftier,” Marley says.
This is something that should have been taken care of long ago, because the fight is only three weeks away and without good sparring partners that can mimic Mayweather’s style in a reasonably good manner, Marquez is going to have big problems against Floyd.
You would think that with all the fighters that Golden Boy Promotions has, they could find at least one fighter that could fight similar to Mayweather and give Marquez a suitable sparring partner in the last weeks of training before the fight. I’m starting to not like the way things are going for this fight.
It’s bad enough that Mayweather handpicked a fighter that is two divisions smaller than him in the 36-year-old Marquez, which has forced Juan to go on a muscle building training regimen to put on weight for the fight. Mayweather is taller, has longer arms and is the bigger frame.
Mayweather already is the faster fighter by far, but the size advantage makes it very difficult to see this fight in a positive light. Just looking at the fight, one can’t help but to see it as a hopeless mismatch with Marquez having virtually no chance at winning the fight. I thought Marquez was a great fighter at featherweight, but as he’s moved up in weight, first to super featherweight and then to lightweight, he’s much more beatable now than he used to.
In his last fight, Marquez was hurt by a left hooks from the light hitting Juan Diaz. That’s not a good sign or goods new if you’re a fan of Marquez, especially when you’re being asked to pay $49/95 to watch the fight on pay per view.
If all that wasn’t enough, with this latest news about Marquez not having adequate sparring partners for training that almost seals it in my mind. I don’t know how Marquez can win the fight with all those disadvantages working against him. Marquez is older, slower, fighting two divisions above his weight and now having to scramble for sparring partners.
I can’t see how this is happening. I don’t like Marquez’s chances. Even with the best sparring partners that money could buy, Marquez would have his hands full with the much faster Mayweather, but when you add all the other factors going against him in this fight, it’s hard to give Marquez much if any chance in this fight.
Assuming that Marquez fails to get an adequate sparring partner, he could possibly win on his own god given talent, but it will be that much harder for him because he’ll have to figure out Mayweather’s style as he goes instead of having the prior experience against a fighter with a similar style in training camp.
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