Marquez vs. Morales: Still no decision on whether the fight will take place

By Boxing News - 01/21/2011 - Comments

Image: Marquez vs. Morales: Still no decision on whether the fight will take placeBy Jim Dower: Earlier today, Fight News reported that the proposed April 9th fight between Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales was off, saying that Marquez had rejected Morales for the 4/9 date. However, Dan Rafael of ESPN says that this information isn’t correct. Apparently, the 37-year-old Marquez hasn’t rejected Morales. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer had this to say: “We met with Marquez yesterday and he will get back to us. He hasn’t rejected Morales.”

What is holding up Marquez from agreeing to take the fight is the money, as he wants more money than what has been offered. It’s going to be a pay-per-view bout, but what is unclear is the public interest in this fight. It’s hard to get a good gauge of how much money it can make because there just doesn’t seem to be a whole heck of a lot of interest from boxing fans to see this fight.

The biggest problem is that Morales appears to be somewhat shot and hasn’t looked good in his fights since making a comeback after three years of being out of the sport. If this was the old Erik Morales, a fight between him and Marquez would easily bring in good money on PPV. But Morales has been out of the public eye since 2007, and hasn’t been a relevant fighter since beating Manny Pacquiao in 2005. After that fight, Morales kind of went down hill rapidly.

Whether Marquez decides to not fight Marquez on 4/9, the PPV card will still go ahead on that date. Golden Boy will have to put in some of their good fighters to try and make the best of a bad situation in that case. Ideally, they need to scrap the Morales-Marquez fight and look to match Marquez against someone that can still actually fight, someone that the young boxing fans really care about. Morales is old news at this point and he’s not someone that is recognizable to the younger fans who have never seen him fight before.



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