By Nick Bannister: Among another uncommonly good weekend of boxing, one fight has been most widely considered to be a fight of the year contender in waiting, in which Ring Magazine Lightweight Champion and P4P No 4 Juan Manuel Marquez takes on number one contender Michael Katsidis for the Ring Lightweight Title. After the stunningly brutal but anticlimactic end to last weekend’s big attraction, boxing fans can be forgiven for crossing their fingers and toes for big entertainment this time out, though with Froch, Abraham, Bika, Ward, Berto and Caballero all in action, it’s hard to imagine we won’t see a classic somewhere.

With Marquez and Katsidis having brought so much entertainment throughout their careers, it is easy to see why early articles about the fight were predicting an all action firefight that could go either way. Lately however, this has begun to give way to more considered predictions and analysis. Some have begun predicting that Juan Manuel will be too good and will outclass Katsidis, while others have been predicting that Marquez will begin to show the age that logic dictates he soon will, after a bruising 16 year career with more than a few all out wars, and that Katsidis will overwhelm him with his sheer power and volume punching. Which of these positions best stands up to analysis, and which man is likely to come off best on Saturday night?

Katsidis has decent pedigree, with wins over Czar Amonzot and Kevin Mitchell, and right now deserves his number one lightweight status. He is a phenomenally powerful fighter, capable of throwing a lot of punches, and is more than willing to take heavy punishment in order to give it out. His fight with Graham Earl was one of the most bruising in recent history, and his win over Amonzot resulted in both men being hospitalized, Katsidis the result of severe cuts, Amonzot for a serious subdural hematoma. Although he lacks genuine one punch knockout power, the combined effect of his punches more than make up for it, and his KO ratio (22 from 27) backs that up. No opponent is going to go in to a fight with Katsidis unconcerned for his safety. While no technician, Katsidis has good offensive technique, fighting best on the inside. He also has an iron chin and massive heart, only having been stopped once.

Marquez needs little introduction. He is a genuine P4P star, with fights (and mostly wins) against the best from featherweight through to lightweight, and was even willing to journey to welterweight to take on fellow legend Floyd Maywether. He is a certain first draft hall of famer, and even at 37, there are few that doubt his status as one of the best in the game. With wins over Joel Casamayor, Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Diaz (twice), as well as being the last man to give Pacman a serious test, his record easily outshines that of Katsidis. Like Katsidis, he lacks one punch knockout power, but unlike Katsidis, he does posses stunning accuracy, especially with a counter-punch, and an uncanny ability to adjust to a fighter’s style and out-think them in the ring. He is also willing to stand and trade if needs be, and it there are not many men tough enough to get up from 3 first round knockdowns to finish a fight the stronger man. While he may have made a step too far in taking on Mayweather at welterweight, Marquez is clearly the man to beat at lightweight, just as he has been at lower weight classes.

The most obvious point of reference for this fight are the two men both have faced, Joel Casemayor and Juan Diaz and the difference is alarmingly stark. Katsidis is 0-2. Against Casamayor, Katsidis was ahead on the scorecards going in to the late rounds, having recovered from two early knockdowns to pound Casamayor and score a knockdown in the sixth. Despite this, Katsidis was too eager in going for the knockout, and was caught and floored by a perfect Casamayor counter left hook. Although he got to his feet, did not recover and lasted only a few more seconds before the referee stopped the fight. Against Diaz, Katsidis was beaten by a better version of himself, being out landed 2-1 through 12 gruelling rounds by another high volume pressure fighter, one who appeared to posses greater skills and power. There is no shame in losing to the best, but like Hatton against Mayweather and Pacquiao, or Bika against Bute and Calzaghe, he seemed to be a good fighter finding he wasn’t quite an elite one.

Marquez on the other hand is 3-0, having knocked out Casamayor and Diaz in successive fights, before easily outpointing Diaz again following his loss to Mayweather. Against Casamayor, Marquez was out-boxed early by the highly skilled Cuban, before finding his range and eventually hurting him late on the way to two knockdowns and an 11th round stoppage. Against Diaz, Marquez initially seemed to show signs of age, and many commentators though that the fight represented something of the end of an era, as Diaz overwhelmed Marquez, who couldn’t seem to land with his power shots. However, Marquez began to create space on the inside, and started to hurt Diaz both with single uppercuts and with brutal exchanges of combinations. Eventually, the accurate power punching was too much for Diaz, who was knocked out in the 9th. The fight was not only fight of the year, but in my opinion performance of the year – to paraphrase Max Kellerman, a good young fighter being beaten by a great old fighter. In the rematch, Marquez faced a lesser Diaz, and was not unduly stretched as he won a clear unanimous decision.

Given the gulf in both class and experience, what chance then of a Katsidis win? If he is to have any chance at all, one of two things must happen. The first, and something that has to happen eventually, is that Marquez has to slow down. He is the oldest P4P top 10 fighter, has had close to 60 fights, including going a total of 48 rounds with modern legends Pacquiao, Mayweather and Barrera, and has had some other notable titanic scraps. His incredible will and fitness simply cannot carry him through forever, however well it has served him in the past. Against Mayweather he looked slow, though much of that can be blamed on fighting 9 lbs above his normal limit, and against Diaz he looked slightly diminished from the fighter that gave Pacman the fright of his life both in 2004 and 2008. It is undeniable that the Marquez of late 2010 is not quite on a physical par with that of 2007-8, though it is also hard to deny that the athleticism shown in the Diaz fights wouldn’t still put most modern fighters to shame. For wear and tear to be a major factor, Marquez will have to slow down much more than he has shown evidence of so far.

The second is that Katsidis keeps a cooler head and fights a smarter fight than he has ever done before. The counter punches he took against Casemayor and the sheer number of shots he took against Amonzot and Diaz betray a fighter that does not have anything like the defensive skills to operate at the very highest level. Many a great offensive fighter has been found out through lack of an effective defence, and unless he has done a lot more work on it that he has in the past, Katsidis is going to find he eats a lot of shots, which even if he takes, may cut or swell his eyes enough to give him problems late on. You can’t fight if you can’t see, and Marquez will have no hesitation in targeting cuts or swellings. With such raw athleticism, a top trainer could surely have molded Katsidis in to a more serious contender, but the fighter seems to lack either the will or the means to cure the flaws in his game.

Katsidis is a likable guy, and given the recent tragic death of his brother and his dedication to a crowd pleasing stlye (generously but not entirely unfairly compared to that of Arturo Gatti), it is a shame that it is hard to give him more than a puncher’s chance in this fight. If Marquez, who has never been stopped, can take the best that Pacman, Barrera and Diaz can throw at him, it is hard to see how he will be unduly troubled by a slugger like Katsidis, and it is near impossible to see Katsidis outpointing such a wily veteran if it goes the stretch. Marquez will likely take some hard early punishment, and a knockdown is hardly out of the question given how many times he’s been down before, but I would expect the gap in class to tell, and for Katsidis to get a slow, systematic beating culminating in a mid to late stoppage, possibly on doctor’s orders. My fear is that like the recent Margarito beat-down, it might be one of those fights that doesn’t end as early as it should.

One day, and maybe one day soon, it will be a fight too far for Marquez, possibly if he goes after one of the new powers at light-welterweight like Bradley or Khan and finds them just too fast. Barring a far more sudden decline than any of the current evidence suggests however, win 52 of Marquez’s great career seems to be the only likely outcome this time around.