Arum still wants Marquez to fight welterweights like Clottey or Berto before he considers allowing Pacquiao to fight him

By Boxing News - 08/20/2010 - Comments

Image: Arum still wants Marquez to fight welterweights like Clottey or Berto before he considers allowing Pacquiao to fight himBy Dave Lahr: According to Kevin Iole of Yahoo, Bob Arum still believes that Juan Manuel Marquez needs to prove himself at welterweight before he’ll consider putting his fighter Manny Pacquiao in with Marquez for a third mega fight between the two super stars. Arum would like to see the 37-year-old Marquez fight and beat quality welterweights like his fighter Joshua Clottey from his Top Rank stable and/or Andre Berto, who doesn’t fight for Arum.

It seems kind of unreasonable request for Marquez given that Arum is going to have Pacquiao fighting another one of his Top Rank fighters Antonio Margarito on November 13th, and Margarito hasn’t proven himself capable of beating a quality junior middleweight as of yet – unless you count the little known Roberto Garcia who Margarito just beat by a 10 round unanimous decision on May 8th.

However, Arum didn’t require for Margarito to beat a top fighter in the junior middleweight division before matching him with Pacquiao. It seems to reason that if Marquez is being asked to fight a top welterweight before getting a fight against Pacquiao, then Margarito, in turn, should have to beat a quality junior middleweight like Alfredo Angulo, Sergio Martinez, Sergeii Dzinziruk or Yuri Foreman before he gets a shot against Pacquiao. Margarito did beat WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto in the past, but that was two years ago and it took place at welterweight, not junior middleweight. And Pacquiao hasn’t even fought at junior middleweight. Shouldn’t he have to prove himself at this weight before he’s given a shot at the vacant World Boxing Council junior middleweight title. It seems only fair.

It would be awfully convenient for Arum if Marquez were to fight Clottey fight now. Joshua looked horrible in his loss to Pacquiao in March, losing every round and seeming like he was just going through the motions. Marquez would be doing Arum a huge favor if he were to fight Clottey right now. But that would be a huge step down for Marquez. If he were to pick out a welterweight to fight, I’m sure he could do much better than Clottey by going after someone like Shane Mosley or Saul Alvarez, two highly thought of stars.



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