By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao feels that 39-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (55-6-1, 40 KO’s) should agree to fight him since Pacquiao gave him a chance recently to fight again in their fourth fight last December after having beaten him by a controversial decision the previous year.
Pacquiao said to the Manila Bulletin “I agreed to fight him [Marquez] because he was begging me to give him another chance, so I gave him the chance, but if he doesn’t want, what can I do?”
The situation is different from how Pacquiao beat Marquez in 2008 and 2011 compared to how Marquez beat him last December. Pacquiao’s wins over Marquez were both controversial; whereas Marquez’s knockout win over Pacquiao last December was irrefutable.
You can’t deny that Marquez won that fight, but you can highly question Pacquiao’s two wins and his draw against Marquez because many boxing fans feel Marquez should have won all three of those fights.
Pacquiao definitely had a lot of people in the boxing community questioning all of his victories, while many others questioned just his last win. It was a situation where he kind of had to fight Marquez a fourth time, especially when his promoter Bob Arum started talking dollars and cents in showing that a Marquez rematch would bring a lot more money than a second fight with Tim Bradley. Pacquiao chose the bigger money fight and got knocked out by Marquez.
There is simply no reason for Marquez to fight Pacquiao again other than to get a final paycheck, and I don’t see him agreeing to the fight unless Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum agrees to give Marquez a 50-50 deal in the purse split. The chances of that happening are quite low to say the least. The last time they fought Marquez, Pacquiao got a 76-24 split of the green, and I just don’t see Arum being willing to bump that up more than 65-35, which is probably not going to be enough to lure Marquez into taking the fight.
Arum has got to sweeten that bump and equal it out to a 50-50 deal, and Marquez will take the fight in a heartbeat I’m guessing. The thing is even at a 50-50 deal, Pacquiao would still likely get his usual $20 million per fight because this fight will likely make a lot more money than the previous four due to Pacquiao getting knocked out last time.
People want to see if Marquez will finish Pacquiao off, and so they’ll purchase the fight in incredibly high numbers. But I just don’t think Arum will agree to give Marquez the money that would cause him to change his mind, so we’ll likely not see that fight getting made.
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