By Dave Lahr: This Saturday night there are a lot of questions about Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KO’s) that will be answered in his catch weight fight with Mexican great Juan Manuel Marquez (50-4-1, 37 KO’s) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. To start with, boxing fans are wondering how Mayweather will hold up under heat of battle against a well tuned fighter like the 36-year-old Marquez.
It’s been 21 months since Mayweather last threw a punch in battle, and probably a lot longer than that since Mayweather has been put in with a fighter on his own level.
Mayweather has had things easy for the past four years, spending gads of money on this need or that and not fighting opponents on his own talent level. This, along with Mayweather’s two years away from boxing, could ultimately lead to problems against Marquez on Saturday.
32 isn’t young for boxing, and Mayweather is clearly on the downward slope of his boxing career. He’s faced some good fighters during his career and some that are not so good. And partly because of his unbeaten record and tendency to not get hit, Mayweather has been crowned by some boxing experts as the best fighter in boxing.
It’s kind of a subjective thing, because in order to really be the best fighter in all of boxing, Mayweather would actually have to prove it and he thus far hasn’t done a very good job of doing that. However, in the make believe world of boxing, Mayweather is still thought of as being the best in the sport.
Mayweather is going to have to prove that he’s still the top fighter against Marquez, and unless Mayweather beats Marquez in a dominating fashion, Floyd’s status as the number #1 fighter in the sport will drop dramatically. There’s clearly a lot of pressure on Mayweather in this fight.
Mayweather can’t just win, like Marquez. Mayweather needs to abandon his safety first defensive oriented style of fighting and let his hands go if he wants to get the win and be considered still as the number #1 fighter. Besides that, Mayweather has to look good to continue to be the huge PPV star that he’s been in recent fights. Some boxing experts feel that Mayweather had little to do with the success of his fights against Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton.
They point to that because his fight with Marquez has thus far failed to get much attention in the sports world despite the HBO Mayweather-Marquez 24/7 reality boxing series that has been airing for the past three weeks to try and promote the September 19th fight.
Mayweather, 32, has previously captured six World Boxing titles in five different weight classes. This is a great accomplishment, but none of that matters on Saturday against Marquez. If Floyd has suddenly grown old in the ring, Marquez will beat him and possibly knock Mayweather out. Marquez is looking very powerful in his training and has gained a lot of attention for his new powerful look to his physique, Marquez has put on muscle for the fight, but in this case it’s useful muscle.
Marquez appears to be punching a lot harder than he did in the past and has exploded a couple of speed bags during the Mayweather-Marquez 24/7 episodes. It’s not just some gimmick or trick. Marquez looks much more powerful than he did previously, and looks to be the bigger puncher compared to Mayweather.
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