Beristain thinks Pacquiao would be difficult fight for Marquez at this point

By Boxing News - 05/24/2014 - Comments

marquez5By Chris Williams: Juan Manuel Marquez’s trainer Nacho Beristain is still hoping that he’ll choose not to take a fifth fight against Filipino fighter Manny Pacquiao for November. Beristain is trying his best to persuade Marquez not to take the fight, because he sees it as a fight where Marquez has little to gain and a lot to lose. Marquez wants the fight because it would give him his best chance at trying to win a 5th division world title.

Marquez matches up much better with Pacquiao than he does against the other welterweight champions Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shawn Porter, so he’s going after a guy that is the most beatable for him.

Beristain doesn’t see this as much of a fight about glory but rather one that is about the green stuff. He sees it as a money thing for Marquez.

“I think it would be unfair to spoil that moment [Marquez’s knockout win over Pacquiao]. A fifth fight would fail the people because it’s no longer about sports. They know that that fight would generate a lot of money,” said to The Record.

Of course this fight is about money. That’s why Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum wants Marquez as Pacquiao’s opponent, because Marquez brings in the pay-per-view buys in high numbers. If it were merely about the sports and accomplishment, Pacquiao would likely be fighting his No.1 contender Bethel Ushona. But I imagine that Ushona will never, ever get a title shot against Pacquiao, even though he’s ranked No.1 by the WBO.

Ushona is an unknown to the casual boxing fans in the United States, so he’s probably never going to get a crack at Pacquiao’s title, because a fight against him wouldn’t bring in the huge PPV buys. That’s why you get an unranked Marquez fighting an unranked Mike Alvarado in a WBO welterweight eliminator to fight Pacquiao. Marquez brings in the PPV buys, so he fights in an eliminator without having to be ranked, and he gets to jump ahead of No.1 Ushona, who doesn’t bring in the PPV buys. Is it fair? Probably not, but it’s the way boxing is. The sport is about popularity and about who brings in the fans and PPV buys.

“[It] would be a terrible, hard, very difficult fight because Manny will go for everything, for the revenge. I would like them not to fight,” said Beristain.

Pacquiao will no doubt be looking for revenge, but that doesn’t mean he’ll necessarily win the fight against Marquez. If Pacquiao is seeing red like a little bull in a rematch with Marquez, he very well could charge into another right hand from him and get knocked clean out again. You just know that his trainer Freddie Roach would be reminding him daily during training camp about how Marquez knocked him out, and it would be a constant irritant for Pacquiao to listen to Roach bringing him back mentally to what happened on that terrible night in December 2012.
“We’ve talked but he still insists on a fifth title… I think he has every right in the world to try to be the first Mexican to win five titles,” he said.

Marquez really needs to let it go. If he’s going to pick up a new title, he could at least fight the best champion at that weight [Mayweather] in order to try and get full credit instead of going after a secondary title. Marquez should really skip the welterweight division entirely and instead go after either WBO junior middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade or IBF 154 lb. champion Carlos Molina. At least Marquez would be fighting someone he’d never fought before. He’s already fought Pacquiao 4 times, so where is the accomplishment if he picks up his paper title? It’s like going back in school to the 6th grade to see if you’ll do better years later. Why do it?



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