Marquez probably won’t fight again if his knee doesn’t recover, says Beristain

By Boxing News - 01/12/2015 - Comments

marquez000005By Dan Ambrose: Manny Pacquiao conqueror Juan Manuel Marquez’s future is in doubt right now due to a knee injury he suffered in his last fight a year ago against Mike Alvarado in May of 2014.

Marquez easily won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but the win came at a high cost with Marquez injuring his knee. The injury still hasn’t healed and it’s unclear when it will.

In the meantime, Marquez will be turning 42-years-old in August and he doesn’t have a lot of time to sit around waiting for his knee to heal up.

Marquez’s trainer Nacho Beristain thinks there’s an outside possibility that Marquez will be finished as a fighter and will need to walk away from the boxing world if his knee fails to heal. Marquez has already been out of the ring for the past seven months, and there’s no telling how much longer it’s going to take for his knee to heal.

Even with knee surgery, it takes a long time to come back from that. It’s something that can keep a fighter on the shelf for a prolonged period of time, and if they’re not young then it can really cripple what’s left of their career.

“Before anything else is the physical aspect. Hopefully Juan Manuel recovers from the knee injury. He’s in rehab,” said Marquez’s trainer Nacho Beristain via Gmanetwork.com. “Later on we’ll have to see how he feels on his knee. If he doesn’t get better, we’ll have to see what happens. He probably won’t fight again, but that’s his decision to make.

Marquez has a lot of options available to him if he can rehab his knee and come back in 2015. There’s a big money fight against Manny Pacquiao he could take, or he could challenge for a world title against IBF champion Kell Brook. Those fights are just for starters. Marquez can pretty much pick and choose whoever he wants to fight in the sport with the exception being Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Marquez already lost a fight against Mayweather in 2009, and the bout was so one-sided that there’s little chance of them facing each other a second time. However, a Marquez vs. Pacquiao fifth fight would likely give Marquez a huge payday to retire on if he wanted to take that fight before stepping away from the game.

Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum and trainer Freddie Roach both want the fight because it would give Pacquiao the opportunity to erase a painful loss he suffered against Marquez back in 2012 in which Pacquiao was knocked clean out in the 6th round.

Marquez has been cool to the idea of facing Pacquiao again, but it’s always possible he could change his mind if he knows that he has only one fight left in his career.

Knee surgery would likely take a long time for Marquez to come back from if he’s forced to go that route. If he tries to come back too soon, he’ll likely be hobbling around the ring the way Sergio Martinez was in his recent fight against Miguel Cotto last year in June. Marquez obviously doesn’t need that.



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