By Chris Williams: Former four division world champion Juan Manuel Marquez (55-6-1, 40 KO’s) turns 40-years-old today as he prepares for his title challenge against WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (30-0, 12 KO’s) on October 12th at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Marquez fights like he’s 10 years younger than his chronological age, and you can make a case where he’s aged better than someone like Manny Pacquiao, who at 5 years younger at 35 is starting to show some serious cracks in his exterior facade.
Marquez isn’t saying how much longer he plans on fighting, but unless he plans on facing some of the better welterweights in the division, it might not be worth it for him to stay in the game for too much longer. Bradley’s a decent welterweight, but he’s not in the class of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and he’s probably not as good as other fighters in the fight class like Keith Thurman, Adrien Broner, Robert Guerrero, Andre Berto, Marcos Maidana and Devon Alexander.
Fighting those guys might be impossible with Marquez facing Top Rank fighters. If Marquez isn’t going to fight Manny Pacquiao, then Bob Arum of Top Rank will likely aim him towards his small band of welterweights and light welterweights like Brandon Rios, Mike Alvarado and Terence Crawford. Like I said, it’s a really small amount of choices that Marquez has if he chooses to continue fighting after the Brady fight, if he’s interested in fighting a well-known name.
Marquez matches up really well with Bradley, and he’s caught him at the exact right moment with Bradley coming off of a close win over Ruslan Provodnikov. Marquez needs to take the fight to Bradley and test his chin early and often, because he could hurt Bradley the same way that Provodnikov did.
There is a lot Marquez could do at 147, but unfortunately he probably won’t get to face the bigger names in this weight class unless he fights the Top Rank promoted Pacquiao again.
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