Roach wants Marquez for Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 11/29/2013 - Comments

pac7169By Chris Williams: It still burns trainer Freddie Roach that his fighter Manny Pacquiao was knocked cold by Juan Manuel Marquez almost a year ago when Pacquiao made the mistake of following Roach’s less than brilliant game plan to attack Marquez, resulting with Pacquiao getting stopped in the 6th. It was Roach’s mistake for telling Pacquiao to fight aggressively against a fighter with superior skills like Marquez.

Instead of forgetting about Pacquiao’s loss and realizing that he made the mistake of telling him to fight like he was still 25 against the counter-punching Marquez, Roach has been stewing about the loss for months and he now wants Pacquiao to fight Marquez again in what would be the 5th time between them.

Never mind that Marquez is 40 now, and coming off of a loss to Tim Bradley, Roach still wants Pacquiao to avenge the loss at all costs. One gets the sense that Roach would still be burning with a desire for revenge even if Marquez were elderly and in a rocking chair. For Roach, it’s personal. At some point you’ve got realize that your fighter loss to a better guy and then move on. But Roach can’t let go for some reason.

Roach said via BBC “Marquez is the one fight I want. I’d like to shut him up.”

Roach is worried that Marquez will want too much money for a 5th fight. Marquez already said that he’d fight Pacquiao for a 50-50 split, which sounds fair given that last purse split was 75/25 in favor of Pacquiao last December. Bob Arum can make the fight with Marquez at any time. There’s never been any doubt about that. But without negotiating with Marquez on even terms, they’re not going to get him for a fifth fight.

The time for Roach to have shut Marquez would have been in fight #2, not fight #5, because many people feel that Marquez won all four fights, even though the judges gave Pacquiao a draw in their first fight where Marquez dominated every round from the 2nd round to the 12th, and gave Pacquiao two highly controversial 12 round decision wins in fights two 2 and 3.

By the 4th fight, Marquez was fed up with the Las Vegas judging and decided to take things into his own hands by turning the judges into spectators with nothing to do but watch as he knocked Pacquiao out cold. So, the time for Roach to have Pacquiao shut Marquez up is long past, because in the minds of a lot of fans, Marquez has 4 wins and Pacquiao 0. Marquez definitely has Pacquiao’s number.



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