By Jim Dower: 37-year-old WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (51-5-1, 37 KO’s) showed serious signs of age in his last fight against Juan Diaz on July 31st at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. And while Marquez got the win by a 12 round decision, he took punishment from Diaz in the last four rounds of the fight.

It was lucky for Marquez that he had built up enough of a lead by that point to be able to win the fight by a decision. However, next month on November 27th, Marquez will be facing the fast and hard hitting WBO lightweight interim champion Michael Katsidis (27-2, 22 KO’s) in a 12 round bout at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Katsidis is younger than Marquez at 30, faster than him and bigger puncher. Katsidis is coming off of three consecutive impressive performances against Jesus Chavez, Vicente Escobedo and Kevin Mitchell. In each fight, Katsidis’ power, speed and stamina were impeccable.

He looked especially good in jumping all over the highly hyped Mitchell last May and took him out quickly with a flurry of shots in the 3rd round. Marquez has always had a good chin, so there’s less of a chance that Katsidis will knock him out. However, Katsidis has the speed and the power to dominate most of the exchanges with Marquez.

Katsidis also has the better stamina at this point in his career and is able to fight hard for 12 rounds without fading. This could be bad for Marquez if Katsidis sets a fast pace and makes Marquez work a lot harder than he’s used to doing.

Diaz didn’t really push Marquez the way that Katsidis will likely be doing next month. With as many miles on the odometer that Marquez has on him, he could fall apart if Katsidis pressures him for any length of time.

Marquez is looking beyond Katsidis towards a third fight with Manny Pacquiao, but this could be a big mistake because Katsidis could be a major stumbling block in the road for Marquez.

The chances are incredibly slim that Marquez will get a third fight with Pacquiao simply because Pacquiao’s promoter doesn’t seem interested in this fight. That’s all the more reason for Marquez to put all of his attention and energy into making sure he gets by Katsidis on November 27th. If he can’t beat the Australian, then there are not a lot of other big fights out there for Marquez. He’s in a must win situation.