By Chris Williams: WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (50-5-1, 37 KO’s) and Juan Diaz (35-3, 17 KO’s) will be fighting a rematch on July 31st at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. I can’t really see any point in this rematch happening, because the ending of their last fight had a definitive ending with Marquez wearing Diaz down and stopping him in the 9th round with an uppercut.

The fight may have been one of the best in 2009, but the fortunes of these two fighters have taken a turn for the worse since their last fight, as both have beaten recently. Diaz, 26, was outpointed by Paulie Malignaggi and Marquez lost a one-sided 12 round decision to Floyd Mayweather Jr. last September. Marquez, 36, has now lost two out of his last four fights, and Diaz has lost three out of his last five fights. I know HBO really wanted this fight, but it doesn’t seem like a fight that should be in the main event.

When you have two fighters like this that are coming off of losses, and one of them has lost three out of his last five fights, I see that as an undercard type fight. If I want to see a couple of guys that have been struggling, I can always watch them on free cable and don’t have to shell out big money on pay-per-view. Do you know what I mean?

For me, Diaz-Marquez is an undercard fight all the way. I like Marquez, and used to like Diaz before he started getting beaten on a regular basis, but I don’t like the idea of paying to see two guys who are losing about as much as they’re winning nowadays.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Marquez fight Amir Khan. That is a fight that I would pay to see, as I would also pay to see Marquez against Manny Pacquiao, if they could ever find a weight that was fair for them to fight at. However, Diaz and Marquez are struggling too much for me to get excited about wanting to pay to see them as the main event. I think the undercard fight between Daniel Jacobs and Dmitri Pirog should be the main event fight.

At least that one seems like a competitive match, and neither of these guys has beaten yet. That is the one good fight on the card. But watching an old Marquez beat up on Diaz yet again, that’s not interesting to me if I have to pay. That’s like one of those non-paying fights if you ask me. If Marquez was young, in his 20s, and dominating everyone, I’d like to see him.

But the guy is about to turn 37, has been beaten in two out of his last fought fights, and looked horrid in his last fight against Mayweather. Now they’re putting Marquez as the main event in a PPV bout against a guy that he already beat last year and who has lost three out of his last five fights.

I think HBO is late on this one. If they had fought immediately, say a month after their first fight, I’d be interested in seeing it. I wouldn’t want to pay a dime to see it, because these guys have been losing. But I wouldn’t mind seeing it then. But not now, not when both of them have been beaten in their last fights.