Marquez vs. Mayweather: Is This a Scripted Fight?

By Boxing News - 08/27/2009 - Comments

mayweather342323By Chris Williams: If you’re like a lot of people, it’s hard to get excited about the September 19th fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez, because the fight is so much of a mismatch that the outcome seems scripted. Mayweather, 33, has everything going for him in this fight – height, reach, size, speed and power – and all that Marquez has is going for him is steadier work in the ring.

For a lot of boxing fans, they see this bout as nothing more than an expensive tune-up bout for Mayweather. It’s expensive because the fight card is being sold for nearly $50.00., with a lot of sub par fights on the undercard to justify the huge expense.

I guess most people don’t care about the undercard and mainly decide to pay the huge pay-per-view fees based on whether they like the main event or not. It’s kind of a joke to see this as a worthy fight for Mayweather, because he should have been going after Shane Mosley, Andre Berto or Joshua Clottey instead of a smaller fighter like Marquez. Mayweather says he took the fight with Marquez because he called him out.

Yeah, right. Even Marquez’s own trainer is giving him less than 50% chance to win the fight. How bad is that? If he doesn’t believe in Marquez’s ability to win this fight, why should I? Actually, I didn’t need Marquez’s trainer to tell me that his chances of winning aren’t good, because I could see that for myself. I don’t watching this fight if it’s on ESPN or channel seven, but I don’t like paying for fights that I already know the outcome.

If Mayweather wanted a tune-up, he needed to fight someone his own size for starters. And depending on how awful Mayweather’s opponent is, we would base that on determining how much money people should pay for it. I wouldn’t mind paying $49.95 to see Mayweather fight Paul Williams or Mosley, but not a small fighter like Marquez.

That’s like watching a movie for $50 and knowing that it’s going to be a terrible unsatisfying end. I see this as 12 round decision win for Mayweather, probably by a lopsided decision. Even if it looks as if Marquez wins the fight, Mayweather will still probably win the fight because of boxing politics. Mayweather is the more popular fighter, the bigger cash cow than Marquez.

As such, things like equality get thrown out the window for this fight. Make no mistake, Mayweather is going to win this and it’s going to be boring fight to watch. Some of the fans will convince themselves afterwards that they just saw a pure boxer fight, as if to justify losing $50 on a fight that was less than pleasing to watch.

I like Marquez as a fighter, but he’s just too small and slow to win this fight. Marquez is a good opponent in the absence of someone like Mosley or Williams being available. However, I don’t even think Mayweather ever considered fighting either of them, and that’s disappointing from a fan’s perspective. Who wants to see a fighter take on a much smaller, slower and older fighter like Marquez?

Not me, especially if it means that I got to pay nearly $50 to see it. Forget about the undercard, that’s boring too. Michael Katsidis looks shot, Vincente Escobedo weak and slow, and Zab Judah seems to fail 100% of the time nowadays when facing a big named opponent.

It’s been ages since Judah beat a quality fighter. Don’t care to see him fight Antonio Diaz. Chris John and Rocky Juarez shouldn’t even be fighting. Their fight in February, which took place in Juarez’s home town of Houston, Texas, seemed like a case of robbery to me.

The fight ended up being scored a draw, but few people had Juarez winning more four rounds. I had Juarez winning only one round. I wouldn’t want to watch another one-sided fight like their first fight. That was really boring, because Juarez was inept and helpless for 11 of the 12 rounds. I don’t want to watch that again.



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