Juan Manuel Lopez vs. Rafael Marquez on Saturday night

By Boxing News - 11/05/2010 - Comments

By Sam Gregory: The highly anticipated Juan Manuel “JuanMa” Lopez – Rafael Marquez fight will take place this Saturday night November 6th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas. Originally slated for September 18th the bout was put on hold due to an injury on a finger of Rafael Marquez’ right thumb, this fight is being hyped as a possible ‘fight of the year’ candidate and for good reason.

The last ten months have been extremely disappointing if not downright dreadful for boxing fans. I’m not saying one 12 round fight will make up for such a lackluster year in boxing but one can certainly hope given the history of the two fighters along with their past performances, this fight could turn out to be one of the most exciting nights of boxing in a long time.

The 27 year old undefeated Puerto Rican southpaw Juan Manuel Lopez 29-0 with 26 knockouts will be defending his WBO featherweight title for the second time against the dangerously hard hitting Mexican Rafael Marquez who currently sports a record of 39-5 with 35 of the wins coming by way of knockout.

Lopez, a 2004 Olympian turned pro in January 2005 after 126 wins in 150 bouts as an amateur. A highly skilled ring technician, Lopez is ranked as the number 2 featherweight in the world by Ring magazine, amazingly at the age of 27 has been a pro for less than six years.

The former 122 lb title holder and current featherweight belt holder is well aware of the talent packed division he currently occupies but this fight Saturday with the hard punching Mexican won’t be taken lightly.

“This is the most important fight of my career without a doubt,” Lopez said in a recent interview with RingTV at the Fortune Gym in Hollywood, Calif. “This is a fight I always wanted. Marquez and Israel Vasquez were the best at junior featherweight, where I used to fight, and I always wanted to test myself against the best. I still think Marquez is one of the best.”

The former bantamweight title holder and junior featherweight champ is coming off a dominating third round stoppage of Israel Vazquez last May. Marquez’ hard punching style had an easy time stopping his shopworn rival at 1:33 of the third frame to even up their four bout series 2-2. It was actually the first three fights in that series that catapulted the Mexican principles of the fight to instant stardom earning them Ring magazines ‘Fight of the Year’ for 2007 and 2008.

Lopez’ claim to fame came when he climbed in the ring to challenge California based Mexican Daniel Ponce De Leon for the WBO super bantamweight title in 2008; at the time Lopez was 21-0 with 19 knockouts. De Leon himself had an impressive record with 30 KO’s in 34 fights only having lost one fight on points at that time in his career and was considered to be the toughest, strongest and hardest punching fighter in the division.

Lopez showed complete disregard for De Leon and his reputation when he stopped the Mexican southpaw from Huntington Park, California in 2:25 of the first round to claim his first world title.

After winning the super bantamweight title in June of 08’ Lopez went on to defend the title twice that year by way of first round KO’s. The first defense was against Mexican Cesar Figueroa; 47 seconds of round 1 in October of 08’ than in December of 08’ Lopez stopped Argentine Sergio Manuel Medina in 1:38 of round 1.

In Lopez’ third defense of the super bantamweight title he became the only man to stop the former super flyweight champion Filipino Gerry Penalosa after 10 one-sided rounds in April of 09’. Two months later, Lopez bludgeoned the previously undefeated Oliver Lontchi into submission in nine rounds.

In October of 09’ Lopez fought journeyman fighter Rogers Mtagwa at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Mtagwa’s record at the time was a unimpressive26-12-2 and was not considered a skilled boxer or a dangerous puncher. On this night however Mtagwa didn’t look anything like his usual self as he fought like a man possessed for 12 solid rounds and gave Lopez the fight of his life, coming close to stopping the Puerto Rican champion in both the ninth and tenth rounds until finally losing the fight on points.

After the fifth defense of the super bantamweight title Lopez decided to move up in weight to the 126 pound featherweight division. In his first fight in the featherweight division in January of 2010 Lopez stopped American Steve Luevano in seven rounds to capture the WBO featherweight crown. In July of this year Lopez stopped Filipino Bernabe Concepcion in the second round, but not before Lopez himself suffered a flash knockdown in the first round.

Ironically, of all Lopez’ 29 fights it was the battle against Mtagwa that will have prepared him for what his fight with Marquez will be like.

35 year old Rafael Marquez had a less than stellar start to his career when he was KOed in the eighth round of his debut fight in1995 by 55 fight veteran and fellow Mexican Victor Rabanales. That loss was followed by 12 straight wins, 11 inside the distance, until in May of 1998 Marquez was TKOed in three by Mexican journeyman Francisco Mateos. Marquez followed that loss with nine straight KO wins until in November of 2000 Marquez suffered a devastating 2nd round KO loss to Genaro Garcia.

Marquez didn’t loss another fight for seven straight years.

Marquez first made a name for himself with two wins over the highly skilled Mark “Too Sharp” Johnson. The first was a close ten round decision in October of 2001, the second was just over four months later in February of 2002 when Marquez stopped Johnson in eight rounds at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

A year later in February of 2003 Marquez challenged IBF bantamweight champion Tim Austin who was making his tenth title defense in a six year reign. Marquez overpowered the southpaw from Cincinnati and stopped him in eight rounds to capture his first world title.

Marquez went on to defend his newly acclaimed world title seven times in the next three and a half years. In March of 2007 Marquez challenged Israel Vasquez for the WBC super bantamweight crown which was the first of four mega-fights between the two Mexican warriors that in turn defined both their careers.

Sometimes a boxer’s legacy or his place in history is defined by an equally great opponent. Ali-Frazier, Pryor-Arguello, Tunney-Dempsey and Graziano-Zale; in more recent times Castillo-Corrales and Mickey Ward and Arturo Gatti catapulted their opponents careers into greatness. Along with all these great fighters and fights there are four more fights that cemented their legacy in pugilistic history as arguably four of the greatest fights of all time, the four bloodbaths between Rafael Marquez and Israel Vasquez.

No matter what happens Saturday night between Marquez and Lopez, Rafael Marquez’ greatness in boxing history will be guaranteed because of Israel Vasquez.

After those four remarkable wars between Marquez and Vasquez the obvious question has to be does Rafael Marquez have enough in the tank to weather the storm that Juan Manuel Lopez is sure to bring. In Marquez’ last fight with Vasquez he looked surprisingly sharp and at the age of 35 he appeared to have plenty left in the tank.

So now after having been in four wars in his last five fights, Marquez takes on one of the pound for pound hardest punchers in the world.

Both men will be absorbing a tremendously high number of hard punches. Both these fighters will need to weather a storm of brutal punishment far beyond anything like they’ve ever seen.

This pugilistic battle might possibly go down as one of the greatest fights in the featherweight division since Sandy Saddler stepped in the ring with Willie Pep.



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