By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao and his fans should be happy about Juan Manuel Marquez’s recent decision not to bother facing Paquiao for a 5th fight. I firmly believe that Marquez is really doing Pacquiao – and his loving fans – a big favor by not agreeing to a 5th fight in September because it might be bad for Pacquiao if the fight were to take place.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First off, Pacquiao will be extremely motivated to try and stop Marquez to prove to his loyal fans that his 6th round KO loss to Marquez last December was just a fluke thing. So instead of Pacquiao fighting with intelligence and cunning, we’d likely see him fighting with rage to somehow get even with Marquez.
Well, that isn’t going to work too well against the counter-punching Marquez because he eats up fighters that lose their senses and charge him like wild animals. If Pacquiao goes primitive like he did last time they fought, Marquez will simply step back and load up with a right hand and knock Pacquiao out cold again.
So instead of the rage working for Pacquiao, it will work against him by making it much easier for Marquez to poleaxe him again in front of the entire world. There’s also the question of whether Pacquiao can even take a hard shot without tasting the canvas.
We’re still not sure whether Pacquiao’s chin has been compromised from his KO loss, and if Bob Arum puts him in the ring with Marquez in September, we could see Pacquiao knocked cold from the first hard right hand that Marquez throws in the fight. If that punch is thrown in the 1st round, then it could be curtains for the Filipino.
If Marquez nails him in the 2nd, then that could be the round where Pacquiao gets planked. My point is we don’t know whether Pacquiao’s chin has been weakened by his loss to Marquez in December, and since Arum isn’t eager to test Pacquiao out against a lesser puncher to see if he’s still ok, then he’d be stepping into the unknown in a 5th fight against Marquez in September.
Things have changed too much with Marquez and Pacquiao. Angel Heredia, the strength and conditioning coach for Marquez, has turned him into a monster puncher with his strength training, and he’s not the same fighter that lost two questionable decisions against Pacquiao in 2008 and 2011. Marquez is much stronger now, and Pacquiao is older.
It’s not a good situation for Pacquiao. Arum should instead look to finish out Pacquiao’s career by letting him spend the rest of his days fighting his Top Rank stable fighters one after another. It would be a lot safer for Pacquiao if Arum just kept throwing him in with the feather-fisted Tim Bradley over and over again.
They could have four of five fights, and Pacquiao would likely get through them without getting knocked out. They wouldn’t bring in huge pay per view numbers, but they’d likely still bring in enough to keep a smile on Arum’s face, especially given that they would be all in house Top Rank fights.
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