Lopez wants fight with Juan Manuel Marquez at 130

By Boxing News - 11/07/2010 - Comments

By Jason Kim: After defeating former two division world champion Rafael Marquez when he was unable to come out for the 9th round on Saturday night, World Boxing Organization featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (30-0, 27 KO’s) said he’d like to fight Rafael in a rematch after his shoulder heals and then Lopez wants to take on his older and bigger brother WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (51-5-1, 37 KO’s) at 130 pound catch-weight, according to Philboxing.com.

Lopez said “I would love to fight Rafa again, I know he hurt his shoulder and he asked for a rematch and I would like to do it again, he is a tremendous warrior, a very strong puncher, he gave me the most difficult fight of my career. We have a date for next year in Puerto Rico maybe we can do it again there. I want the fight, he wants the fight, let’s just tell Beltran and Arum to make everything work and we’ll fight. If the rematch goes on, then after beating Rafael again, I would love to fight Juanma Marquez, maybe he can come down to 130 pounds and we can get it on. I only want to fight the best and that should be a good story, fighting the Marquez brothers, I really want to fight Juanma at 130.”

There are a couple of things that might cause problems for a Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Lopez bout. First of all, Marquez would have a lot of problems getting down to 130 at this point in his career. It’s hard enough for him to make 135, but to ask him to get even lower at 130 would likely leave the older Marquez weight drained and in no condition to fight.

The second thing is Marquez could likely make a lot more money facing other guys like Manny Pacquiao at a higher weight. Marquez would be taking a huge pay cut to fight Lopez at 130. If Lopez really does want to fight Marquez, he needs to move up higher to get closer to 135 so that Marquez doesn’t have to struggle as much. It’s not worth it for Marquez to have to drain himself to face a guy that needs him more than he needs Lopez.

If Lopez is willing to fight Marquez at 135 or say 133, I have doubt that Marquez would overpower Lopez. Marquez is too skilled and too powerful for the little Lopez, and I think this would be an easy fight for him. However, if Marquez is forced to drain himself down to 130, then I can see the fight being closer with Marquez still winning but having to push himself to win. Lopez had all he could handle against Rafael last night, and would have lost to a younger version of Rafael.



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