By William Mackay: As the September 19th fight between Juan Manuel Marquez and Floyd Mayweather gets closer and closer, it appears that Mayweather, 32, is looking past Marquez towards a potential fight against Manny Pacquiao. It seems as if Mayweather is making a huge error in assuming that he’s going to get past Marquez, because this is the same fighter that many people felt beat Pacquiao twice.
Mayweather might just be in for a rude awakening on September 19th, because he has a live opponent in front of him for a change and not an old Oscar De La Hoya or limited Ricky Hatton in front of him. Mayweather hasn’t fought in two years and looks older than he did in his last fight against Hatton two years ago.
And that’s just on looks. When the punches start flying, we may quickly find out whether Mayweather has lost some of his hand speed and his stamina. Before Mayweather retired two years, he had things easy in fights against De La Hoya, Carlos Baldomir and Hatton.
Mayweather didn’t have to dig deep and struggle to pull out wins back then, because he was so much better than his competition. The real question you have to ask now of Mayweather is he capable of going to war with a fighter like Marquez and pulling out a win that he has to work hard for.
I don’t know that Mayweather can do this. He hasn’t showed that he can do this in the past in any of his fights. The closest thing that Mayweather had to an actual struggle was seven years ago when Mayweather won a controversial 12 round unanimous decision over Jose Luis Castillo in April 2002.
Many people thought that Mayweather lost the fight, this writer included. He was popular even back then, and the judges ended up giving him the questionable decision. If you thought the Paulie Malignaggi vs. Juan Diaz fight was a bad decision, then you need to see the Castillo vs. Mayweather I. bout, because that was even worse decision, as far as I can tell.
While Mayweather has been out of boxing for the past two years, Marquez, 36, has been staying active, fighting Pacquiao, Joel Casamayor and Juan Diaz. Marquez defeated both Casamayor and Diaz, stopping both of them, and then losing a questionable 12 round decision to Pacquiao.
Marquez probably deserves to be considered to be the best pound for pound fighter in boxing, but because of his controversial loss to Pacquiao, Marquez has to settle for being just one of the best.
With that in mind, I think Mayweather is going to be having some major problems against Marquez on September 19th. Marquez has put on eight pounds of muscle in the past two months by training in the mountains where he’s lifted a lot of boulders to increase his upper body strength.
Marquez now looks like a legitimate welterweight, albeit a short one at 5’7”. Mayweather might be thinking that he can use his speed and movement like he used to in the past to win this fight, but I see Marquez matching Mayweather punch for punch, and staying close on his heals so that he doesn’t get room to move around the ring to land his pot shots.
By far, this is the best fighter that Mayweather has ever faced in his career, and the timing for him couldn’t be worse, coming off of retirement. While Mayweather has been living it up the past two years enjoying himself in Las Vegas, Marquez has been staying busy fighting and training.
I think Mayweather is going to be in for a rude awakening against Marquez. All of his plans for a big money bout against Pacquiao will end on September 19th.
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