Pacquiao vs. Marquez III: Steward picks Manny to win

By Boxing News - 10/11/2011 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao vs. Marquez III: Steward picks Manny to winBy Chris Williams: Trainer Emanuel Steward thinks WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (53-3-2, 38 KO’s) will be too big and too busy for his older opponent, 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (53-5-1, 39 KO’s) on November 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Steward thinks that Marquez, who fights at 135 lbs at lightweight, will have problems gaining enough weight to where he’s competitive against Pacquiao in this fight. Pacquiao, incidentally, typically weighs in at 145 lbs the nights of his fights. Marquez has to train hard just to weight over 130.

As you can see, if Marquez does gain weight for this fight, it’s likely going top be weight that will slow him down and be zero help to him against the naturally taller and bigger Pacquiao. Add in Pacquiao’s younger age of 32, and you’ve got the ingredients for Pacquiao to finally beat Marquez in their third and hopefully final fight.

In their other two fights, Marquez got the better of Pacquiao in most of the rounds and appeared to have won both fights. I had Marquez winning the first fight by a couple of rounds in 2004, and winning the 2nd fight by four rounds in 2008.

The weight is going to be tough on Marquez, but he’ll still make it tough on Pacquiao. Steward feels that the fight will be very exciting to watch because of Marquez’s skills and Pacquiao’s nonstop punching. We could see an interesting and hopefully the judges get the fight scored correctly this time because there was a lot of controversy in the last two fights between them.



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