By David Lahr: After a year and half away from boxing, unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KOs) looks to be on the verge of making a comeback against Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1, 37 KOs) in July at a still to be named location. If Mayweather, 32, could end up facing the winner of tomorrow night’s bout between Ricky Hatton and Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas.
Mayweather has already beaten Hatton in his last fight in December 2007, stopping him in the 10th round. A fight between the two of them, although a likely big hit with boxing fans, would have little suspense for many people – including me – due to Mayweather’s domination over Hatton last time out. Mayweather’s father, Floyd Mayweather Sr., recently had some fun suggesting that Roach wouldn’t want Pacquiao to fight Mayweather Jr.
It’s hard not to agree with Mayweather Sr., because Pacquiao might be good enough to beat Hatton in what will likely be a tough fight, but Mayweather Jr. is an entirely different kettle of fish. Roach could end up with a lot of egg on his face should Pacquiao fight Mayweather Jr. and not only get humiliated by him, but also knocked out as well.
Of course, it’s been quite awhile since Mayweather fought and he may have aged enough to where Pacquiao could do reasonably well against him, but it’s hard to imagine that Pacquiao could do any better than losing by a lopsided decision.
Marquez, 35, recently moved up in weight to capture the vacant World Boxing Organization lightweight title with a 9th round TKO over Juan Diaz in February. However, Marquez seems maxed out at lightweight and it’s hard to imagine Marquez having to put on more weight and fight Mayweather at 147 or close to that weight.
Marquez has fought most of his career at featherweight (126 pounds) and only recently, in 2006, did Marquez move up to super featherweight. At 5’7″, it would be asking a ton of Marquez for him to put on even more weight to take on a fighter as skilled as Mayweather Jr. Marquez could do it, but I doubt he’ll be effective and will likely get beaten up by the bigger Mayweather.
Caballero Defeats Mathebula
In other news, International Boxing Federation/World Boxing Association super bantamweight champion Celestino Caballero (32-2, 22 KOs) defeated South African challenger Jeffrey Mathebula (22-2-2, 12 KOs) by a 12-round split decision last night at the Arena Roberto Duran, in Panama City, Panama. Caballero, 32, was making his first appearance since easily defeating Canadian challenger Steve Molitor by a 4th round stoppage in November 2008.
Caballero fought well in rounds one through six, using his long reach to jab Matebula from the outside and pound him with right hands. Things started to change slightly in the second half as Matebula, ranked #1 in the IBF super bantamweight division, kept a lot of pressure on Caballero, and found success landing combinations to the tiring Caballero.
The final judges’ scores were 116-112, for Mathebula, 116-112 and 116-112 for Caballero.
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