By Esteban Garduno: According to an article at Bleacherreport, trainer Nacho Beristain doesn’t think his fighter Juan Manuel Marquez should fight World Boxing Association light welterweight champion right now. Beristain says “He [Marquez] asked me to go with him to Los Angeles to work on the deal for his next fight, that his people [Golden Boy Promotions] want to match him with Khan, but I told him that’s not a fight to be taken lightly, as he [Khan] is very strong, and it’s not a good fight right now, because he [Marquez] has not fully recovered from the Mayweather fight, which was just brutal.”

Beristain is right. This isn’t a good fight for the 36-year-old Marquez to take right now. Khan is a light welterweight, and Marquez hasn’t looked good in his recent move up to lightweight. Marquez looked absolutely horrible in his last fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last September. Marquez gained weight to make the fight at welterweight, and he looked slow and not good carrying the weight.

Beristain continues on the subject of Khan-Marquez, saying “[Marquez] should look for a different opponent, one in his own weight class, and he should not be exploited again. Khan is a junior welter and that’s where they want to make the fight; I think Juan Manuel deserves to bow out like a true champion, and not by being anyone else’s stepping stone.”

I totally agree. It looks like Marquez, a great fighter, is being used as a sacrificial lamb to make Khan, a light welterweight, look good instead of having Khan man up and fight someone his own size like knockout artist Marcos Maidana. That’s the fight Khan should be taking and for some reason, he’s not. Marquez is too good to be used in this way. Marquez is a great fighter, whereas Khan is someone who appears to have major flaws in his game which could potentially limit him to being a paper champion during his career unless his chin gets better as he ages. Usually a fighter’s chin gets worse, not better, as they age.