By Jim Dower: According to Setanta Sports, six-division champion Oscar De La Hoya is under the belief that Juan Manuel Marquez can beat Floyd Mayweather Jr. if Marquez uses his boxing skills, and elects to jab Mayweather. De La Hoya, 36, points to his own minor success that he had in fighting Mayweather Jr. in his May 2007 split decision loss.
De La Hoya said, “During to the first six rounds I was dominating easily thanks to the jab.” I think that De La Hoya’s memory of the fight has dimmed somewhat over the years, because De La Hoya was far from dominating the fight. De La Hoya was winning in the six rounds, but only because Mayweather Jr. was fighting cautiously, looking for openings to counter De La Hoya and make him pay.
However, it’s true that De La Hoya was having some success early on but that all evaporated in the last six rounds when De La Hoya foolishly abandoned his jab and tried to go to war with Mayweather.
Marquez, 35, a year younger than De La Hoya, doesn’t have the same reach that De La Hoya has, so it’s not going to amount to the same thing for Marquez whether De La Hoya realizes that or not. Marquez has a reach of only 67″, which is five inches shorter than Mayweather’s 72″ reach.
This means that even if Marquez is on the outside, he won’t be able to control the fight with his jab without getting hit with jabs from Mayweather first if he chooses to fire back with jabs of his own. De La Hoya feels that Marquez can win if he uses jabs, aggressive fighting and counter punching.
The counter punching is probably Marquez’s best chance at beating Mayweather, because he can’t out-speed Mayweather with punches or overwhelm him with power like he did in his 9th round TKO of Juan Diaz to capture the World Boxing Association lightweight title in February.
Roach Thinks That Mayweather Won’t Fight Pacquiao
Freddie Roach, the trainer for Manny Pacquiao, came across with a weird interview recently, saying that he doesn’t think that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will want to fight Pacquiao “because he [Mayweather’ doesn’t like to take chances when he fights.” Roach thinks that this will prevent Mayweather from even wanting to fight Pacquiao period.
Is Roach kidding? I don’t think Mayweather cares in the least about risks, because Mayweather wants to get a chance at the huge payday that he’ll be getting if he can fight Pacquiao. Roach is no fan of Mayweather’s cautious counter punching style of fighting, and feels that Mayweather’s July 18th bout with Juan Manuel Marquez will be “boring.”
It may be at that, but Mayweather is still quite effective with his boring style of fighting, and he won’t change it no matter what Roach says about him. It looks as if Roach wants to get Mayweather out of his game to try and make him want to come at Pacquiao in the same way that Hatton came directly at Pacquiao.
Mayweather doesn’t fight that way, and will stay on the outside picking off Pacquiao’s attacks. Pacquiao doesn’t do well against counter punchers, struggling in both of his two fights with Marquez, getting a draw and a controversial 12-round split decision victory. Mayweather has the better boxing skills of the two, and would give Pacquiao a lot of problems with his precise punching.
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