By Eric Thomas: In the latest boxing news, Juan Manuel Marquez (49-4-1, 36 KOs) will take on former IBF/WBA/WBO lightweight champion (34-1, 17 KOs) on February 28th at the Toyota Center, Houston, Texas. There will be no title at stake, other than Marquez’s lightly regarded IBO title. However, the fight, one of the better ones in ages, will match two of the best lightweights in the division in Marquez and Diaz.
Marquez, 35, is coming off a 11th round TKO over Joel Casamayor in September, a fight in which Marquez, who appeared to be losing the fight at the time of the stoppage, dropped Casamayor twice in the 11th with big right hands to get the victory. The action went back and forth throughout the fight, with Marquez fighting well in rounds one through six. However, he never seemed comfortable with the taller, counter punching Casamayor, who often made Marquez pay whenever he would land a shot or try to.
Prior to this bout, Marquez had been on the receiving end of a 12-round split decision loss, losing to Manny Pacquiao in March 2008. Except for a 3rd round knockdown of Marquez, I had him winning the vast majority of the rounds, including the final two rounds, both the 11th and 12th. However, it’s difficult to get a win over Pacquiao, who like big-named fighters like Oscar De La Hoya and James Toney, are going to get the nod from the judges if the fight is even remotely close at the final bell.
Many boxing experts like myself, felt that Marquez easily won the fight and had done more than enough to get the win with his superior boxing skills.
Diaz, 25, recently defeated Michael Katsidis by a 12-round split decision in September. Though the final scores were close, with Diaz winning 115-113, 116-112 and 111-115, it seemed more of a one-sided fight from what I saw, as Diaz looked much, much better than Katsidis and dominated almost the entire fight. The fight, when it was signed, was thought to have the makings of a war.
Unfortunately, Katsidis, who usually brawls with his opponents and tries to take them out with big power shots, changed his style completely for the fight, choosing to box the full 12 rounds instead of slug. This made it easy for Diaz, who if there is any weakness in his game, it’s his ability to handle hard shots for a full 12 rounds.
Katsidis chose to play it safe, boxing from the outside and choosing his spots to attack Diaz. It didn’t work out for him, as Diaz dominated him with flurries and easily outworked him to get the decision.
In Diaz’s bout before that, Diaz lost a 12-round decision (and in the process his IBF/WBA and WBO lightweight titles) to Nate Campbell in March.
Diaz simply got outworked by Campbell, who ended up beating him with his own came, using a high volume offense to out-punch Diaz over the course of the fight. Diaz was fighting somewhat well up until the 6th, though still losing on my card, but after receiving a cut over his left eye, Diaz seemed to lose confidence and let his punch output drop off significantly.
This allowed Campbell to take complete control over the fight and he easily won most of the remaining six rounds of the fight.
Marquez will have his hands full against Diaz, because he’s going to be going up against a fighter 10 years younger than him, with excellent speed, power and an enormous work rate. He won’t let Marquez beat him from the outside with an occasional shot and a few flurries. Indeed, if Marquez has any hope in beating Diaz, he’s going to have to stand in front of him and try to outwork him like Campbell did, and land hard shots. Minus that, then I see Diaz having too much youth and energy for Marquez to win. It will probably be close, because Marquez likes to pick his opponents apart on the outside, but in the end, I see Diaz winning by at least a couple of rounds.
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