By Sean McDaniel: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions thinks that Juan Manuel Marquez has the style to beat Floyd Mayweather Jr. on September 19th. Specifically, De La Hoya points out Marquez’s counter punching ability, along with his aggressiveness and his excellent stamina.
Mayweather hasn’t had to fight another counter puncher in ages, and certainly not since he moved up to the welterweight division in 2006. The closest thing that Mayweather has come to facing a counter puncher is Zab Judah, who clearly is not a counter puncher.
De La Hoya is pleased with how Marquez looks since he started training. The 36, year-old Marquez has put on close to nine pounds of muscle since starting his training a couple of months ago and is weighing 144, and is ready right now to take the fight with Mayweather, even though the bout is still two weeks away.
The chance in Marquez’s physique is fairly dramatic, as he looks much more muscular than he was in his last fight seven months ago in February against Juan Diaz. Marquez fought at lightweight (135) for that bout and was much thinner than he is now in terms of muscle.
Marquez appears to have not lost any of his speed while putting on the muscle. If anything, Marquez appears faster with his newly added muscle. Marquez still won’t be nearly as fast as Mayweather, and instead will have to focus on timing Mayweather and taking advantage of Mayweather when he throws punches.
It’s difficult to imagine how this fight will play out because Mayweather himself is also a counter puncher who likes to throw shots to counter his opponent. This is exactly what Mayweather did in his last fight, a 10th round TKO win over Ricky Hatton in December 2007. Hatton attempted to throw a leaping hook and Mayweather leaned away and fired off a short check left hook of his own that connected to the head of Hatton, sending him into the corner where he rammed his head into the ring post and then fell down on the canvas.
Mayweather likely won’t get opportunities as easy as this, because Marquez has a much more conservative offensive style and isn’t prone to throwing amateurish leaping hooks like Hatton. Indeed, the last thing that Mayweather will see if any wild leaping hooks from Marquez on September 19th.
De La Hoya thinks that Marquez will be quick enough to handle Mayweather’s fast hands, but says that he’ll have to be careful about Mayweather’s fakes to the body, because Floyd likes to come back with hooks to the head immediately after that. However, De La Hoya believes that Marquez will be intelligent enough to pick up on what Mayweather is doing and will be able to compensate for Mayweather’s tricks.
De La Hoya thinks that Mayweather will be in for big surprise on September 19th against Marquez. De La Hoya may turn out to be right if Marquez looks as good as he did in the first episode of the HBO Mayweather-Marquez 24/7 series.
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