By Manuel Perez: Juan Manuel Marquez (49-4-1, 36 KOs) faces the future of the lightweight division on Saturday in facing a youthful 25-year-old Juan Diaz (34-1, 17 KOs) for the vacant WBA and WBO lightweight titles at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas. Marquez, 35, has the bigger credentials having held titles in the featherweight and super featherweight titles during his long 16 year career.
So far, Marquez appears to be holding it together and hasn’t shown signs of slipping as a fighter, but we could see that on Saturday night because Marquez will be throwing a lot of punches and forcing Marquez to work much harder than he’s had to in many years.
Marquez would like nothing better than to defeat Diaz, pick up the two titles and keep putting pressure on Manny Pacquiao to give him a good paying rematch in the near future. Marquez lost a controversial 12-round split decision to Pacquiao in March 2008, and he’s been after Pacquiao ever since to try and get a rematch. Pacquiao, however, has had other big fish to fry, beating Oscar De La Hoya and now poised for a huge mega fight against Ricky Hatton in May.
However, unless that fight ends up close and bitterly contested making a rematch necessary, Marquez could be in the running for another shot at Pacquiao. But, for that to happen, Marquez’s going to have to look especially good against Diaz on Saturday night.
Marquez had a tough time in his last fight having to fight hard to get a 11th round Joel Casamayor in September. This would seem to suggest that Marquez may have taken a step too far in moving up to the lightweight division where he seems a tad bit too small. The good thing for him, at least for this Saturday, is that Diaz isn’t particularly big himself and isn’t what you can consider a power puncher.
Diaz gets his wins based on overwhelming his opponents with countless punches every round, and is at his best when he’s standing in close to his opponent winging punches. At a distance, Diaz is more vulnerable and doesn’t have the style to box for 12 rounds like Marquez.
This is Marquez’s best strategy for winning the fight. If he tries to trade shots with Diaz in close he probably won’t have the work rate to keep up with a youngster like Diaz. Even in his youth, Marquez would have been hard put to keep up with someone like Diaz, who fights at a level that has rarely been seen since Aaron Pryor last fought.
Marquez has to try and keep the fight on the outside some way, and make Diaz try to box with him instead of slug. When Diaz comes in close, Marquez needs to try and clinch him as fast as possible to shut down his punches.
Nate Campbell did a good job of stifling Diaz’s punches on the inside by throwing a ton of punches himself and then grabbing him to shut him down during rest periods. Diaz was essentially helpless against Campbell and had no plan B to defeat Campbell’s clever strategy.
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