By Jim Dower: Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1, 37 KO’s) is ready to pull off a major upset on September 19th in his mega fight with undefeated pound-for-pound boxing star Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KO’s) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Marquez, 35, has put on weight, gotten much stronger and is hitting harder than he ever did before. Marquez is making no secret about what he plans to do against the 32-year-old Mayweather, intending on attacking him to the body.
Mayweather struggled in the past when facing Jose Luis Castillo, a huge body puncher, who attacked Mayweather downstairs often in their two fights in 2002. Although Castillo lost both of the fights, many people boxing fans feel that Mayweather lost the first fight in April 2002.
Marquez has been training in the mountains for his bout with Mayweather, running hills and lifting large rocks to strengthen his legs, arms and shoulders. Marquez sees Mayweather as having a weakness in taking body shots and intends on working in that area against him. Mayweather recently sustained an injury to one of his ribs while in training. He won’t say what was the cause of the injury, but speculation is that one of his hard-hitting sparring partners hurt him with a big body shot while training.
Mayweather has since healed up and barring another injury, will be ready for their bout in September. Mayweather hasn’t fought in two years since retiring after his 10th round TKO victory over Ricky Hatton in 2007.
Rumored to be in need of money, Mayweather has come back with the goal of fighting Manny Pacquiao. However, instead of taking an easy tune-up for the fight, Mayweather decided on Marquez, who he points out really beat Pacquiao in both of Marquez’s prior two fights with Manny.
Mayweather figures that by beating Marquez and hopefully Pacquiao, if he can land a fight with him, Mayweather would be beating two of the best fighters in all of boxing. However, it won’t be easy, because the time away from boxing surely couldn’t have helped Mayweather’s skills any.
Mayweather looks noticeably older, less youthful than he did two years ago and there’s a question whether he still has what it takes. For a fighter to take off that much time from the sport, especially a fighter in the lighter weight classes, it’s often difficult, if not impossible, for them to stage a successful comeback. Usually the fighters in the smaller weight classes are unable to come back successfully once they retire for any length of time. The heavyweight class is a different story.
Fighters like George Foreman, Vitali Klitschko and to a lesser extent Larry Holmes, were able to come back to the sport after an extensive amount of time in retirement. For Mayweather to do it, will be a tough task. However, the advantage that he has over normal fighters is that he was so good before he retired that even if he’s only 75% of what he used to be, it might be just enough to get a win over Marquez.
Additionally, Mayweather is the bigger fighter, used to fighting at welterweight compared to Marquez, a former featherweight who has been moving up in weight the past year.
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