by James Le Blanc IV: After DVR’ing every sports show on ESPN the next day to hear what all the analyst had to say about the knockout victory Juan Manuel Marquez scored on Manny Pacquiao and what it meant to the potential showdown of Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather I was utterly disappointed in what I was hearing. It seemed like everyone was automatically calling for a Pacquiao vs. Marquez 5 showdown. As a fan I never wanted to see those two fight a fourth time, or a third time for that matter (but I understand how some do).
This rivalry has held back a few potential match-ups that I would rather have seen and while we can credit Manny for taking on a hard task as he knowingly has issues when he fights his rival Marquez, I preferred he would have taken a different route. But he didn’t, he put his dominance on the line once again and my first thought of hearing Pacquiao-Marquez 4 and remembering how the 3rd fight ended was “What rivalry ends on an even number?” In my opinion, this one did.
While Marquez was dropped several times by Pacquiao, he was able to do what he wanted to do, score an emphatic win by knocking Manny smooth out. When fighters lose by knockout you never hear of a rematch, unless they do what fighters are supposed to do which is work their way back up the ranks. This is what Amir Khan is doing right now; he just dominated an undefeated fighter and may have to fight another time before being able to face the guy that knocked him out in Danny Garcia. Why is this case any different for Pacquiao?
Pacman was coming off of a loss to Tim Bradley and of course I don’t consider that an actual loss and rather commend Pacquiao for not taking up a rematch with Bradley because no one wanted to see him fight Bradley again, and then he gets knocked out, Im sorry guys but Pacquiao needs to work his way back up the ranks like the rest of them.
I will gain a heap of respect for Marquez if he does the right thing, which is NOT fight Pacquiao again. He can either sail off into the sunset with this incredible victory, fight someone else and then retire, or sit back and wait for Pacman to work up the ranks which means retiring because Marquez is closing in on 40. Marquez has the opportunity to do what not many fighters are able to do and that’s leave the game on top. There is a long list of fighters that have hurt the sport by not being able to give it up, recently I heard some more bad news and that’s Bernard Hopkins and Shane Mosley planning their returns in 2013……why?
Marquez felt he was cheated in all previous fights with Manny. He wanted to prove to the fans, Pacquiao, and himself that he was smarter than Manny, the better fighter and he did that. Fighting Manny a fifth time would be the courteous thing to do seeing that Manny was the big draw and decision maker and time and time again kept giving Marquez his chance. Or Marquez can remember the gut wrenching feeling of being cheated and say “You know what, I set out to do what I wanted to do, it took me four tries but we did it, let’s move on”
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