By Jim Dower: I think this fight would have been a great one eight years ago in 2001 when Floyd Mayweather Jr. was fighting as a super featherweight and Juan Manuel Marquez was a featherweight. At that time, Marquez was 28-years-old and in the prime of his boxing career and not all beat up, and filled with scar tissue all around both eyes like he is now.
However, a lot of time has gone by since then and Marquez has taken a lot of punishment, especially recently and doesn’t appear to be the same fighter he was back then. Marquez, 36, is still winning but he’s taking more and more punishment against smaller, slower fighters than Mayweather.
Marquez may not be facing as big a puncher as someone like Manny Pacquiao, but Mayweather will likely be able to open up the scar tissue that surrounds both of Marquez’s eyes and cause him to cut and bleed before long on Saturday night. Mayweather’s jabs will very likely cause Marquez some problems and cut him early.
Marquez has had problems in all three of his last bouts against Juan Diaz, Joel Casamayor and Pacquiao. Marquez won most of them except for the Pacquiao bout but he looked slow and hittable in all of them. Mayweather is much quicker than Diaz and Casamayor and perhaps just as strong.
Marquez’s reflexes looked slow and that’s not a good thing going into a fight against someone like Mayweather. Marquez may have a strong will to win and might be willing to go to the extra level to try and beat Mayweather, but I don’t know that the referee and ringside doctor will allow the fight to go on for long if Marquez is bleeding all over the place and taking a tremendous beating by Mayweather.
Marquez can still be on his feet and it won’t matter if he’s getting the stuffing beaten out of him and bleeding all over creation. That’s the problem. I don’t doubt that Marquez will be going after Mayweather like his life depends on it, but the speed difference between the two is going to be evident from the word go.
I think Mayweather is going to be machine gunning Marquez to pieces with his speedy shots at close range and Marquez will look like he’s fighting in slow motion as winds up with his much slower punches. I actually don’t think Marquez is going to land at that high of a clip, because Mayweather will be knocking him around with his fast combinations and likely knocking him back and to the side with his shots.
Getting hit by shots that he won’t see will be a big problem for Marquez, and if he starts bleeding badly like I think he will, this will impair his vision and make it even harder for Marquez to see Mayweather’s fast punches. Marquez will be badly over-matched in this fight and won’t have any answers.
In his fights against Casamayor and Diaz, Marquez was able to come up with a plan B to come back and score knockouts late in the fight. But against Mayweather, I just don’t think Marquez will have enough time or speed to make that happen.
Mayweather will cut him up and force a stoppage that way or possibly stop him by throwing a massive amount of unanswered combinations that will force the referee to step in to save Marquez. What a terrible ending it will be for Marquez.
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