Diaz-Marquez: Will Diaz outwork Juan Manuel this time?

By Boxing News - 06/28/2010 - Comments

By Jason Kim: WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (50-5-1, 37 kO’s) will meet Juan Diaz (35-3, 17 Ko’s) for a rematch next month on July 31st at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their first fight was an exciting bout that lasted nine rounds and saw both fighters get hurt. Marquez was down early, but came back. Marquez, 36, quickly figured out Diaz’s high pressure style of fighting after four or five rounds and began to punish with counter shots in between Diaz’s own punches.

Eventually, Marquez began to tee off on Diaz with powerful uppercuts to the head. In the 9th round, Marquez put Diaz down with a hard uppercut that left Diaz flat on his back with his face reddened and battered. This was Marquez in his finest hour. Following that win, Marquez came back for an ill-advised fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last September and lost a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision. Marquez looked far too small for Mayweather, and the act of putting on weight to meet Mayweather at the 143 pound catch weight seemed to slow Marquez down to the point where he was totally ineffective against Floyd.

Marquez is now defending his two lightweight titles against Diaz. There’s really little point in there being a rematch, but HBO likes the fight and it’s a good money bout for Marquez. The winner of the fight has the option, if they’re interested, in moving up in weight to fight WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan. Golden Boy Promotions, who promotes Khan, would like to match Khan up against either Diaz or Marquez. If they had their choice, they would probably much prefer Marquez be the opponent, because Diaz has lost three out of his last five bouts and his career is going throw a really bad period.

Marquez is actually doing Diaz a world of good by fighting him right now, because with that many losses in his last five fights, the last thing you would think that Diaz would be challenging for is two world titles. Based on the last fight between Diaz and Marquez, you would think that Marquez will likely win the rematch. However, Marquez is 36, and is coming off of a loss against Mayweather in which Marquez took a lot of punishment from a bigger fighter.

With the combination of the punishment and the age, you just don’t know how much Marquez has left in the tank at this point in his career. He’s had a lot of hard fights and he might not have enough left to get by the much younger 26-year-old Diaz. All Diaz has to do is fight at a high pace, the same pace that he fought the last fight with Marquez and don’t lean forward as much.

If Diaz can stay out of the way of Marquez’s uppercuts, then he will have an excellent chance at beating him. Marquez looked pretty old and tired at times in the Mayweather fight. Diaz has to have seen that fight and knows that Marquez is vulnerable if he plays his cards right.



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