By Chris Williams: 39-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez is supposed to be making a decision soon to his promoter Fernando Beltran about whether he’ll continue fighting or not with his boxing career, according to fightnews.com. Marquez’s wife wants him to retire, and he had previously told her he would retire following his fourth fight with Pacquiao.
If Marquez decides to fight on, Beltran wants to put him back in the ring on April 20th, a week after Manny Pacquiao’s tune-up fight on April 20th. Marquez’s possible opponent for that fight date is unbeaten Jessie Vargas or Vyacheslav Senchenko.
If Marquez and Pacquiao win their next fights then the two of them will meet up on September 14th on the Mexican Independence Day for their 5th fight together. As important as this fight is, it’s likely that it will still take place even if one or both of them are beaten in their tune-up fights.
Casual boxing fans have short memories and don’t follow the sport close enough to know about losses unless it’s a highly visible fight, so Pacquiao and Marquez will still be okay if they lose their next fights.
Jessie Vargas would be a tough fight for Marquez because Vargas mainly jabs and moves. He would be someone that Marquez would have to chase down and fight on the inside to beat. Vargas likes to clinch a lot when his opponents get close and it’s frustrating to fight him because he’s not a slugger. A better option would be Senchenko, but he’s not a great option either because he’s a pure boxer like Vargas. Marquez needs more of a slugger to fight so he won’t have to chase them down.
Pacquiao is rumored to be facing either Brandon Rios or Tim Bradley next, which really isn’t a tune-up bout. Those are likely going to be the guys that Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum offers him but he really needs to say no to both of those guys even though they’re both Top Rank fighters and it would help Arum if Pacquiao fought them.
Pacquiao needs to fight a lower level guy at welterweight or light welterweight without power. Bradley doesn’t have power but he likes to run and he’ll make it tough on Pacquiao with his hit and move technique.
Comments are closed.