By Dave Lahr: The great Mexican warrior Juan Manuel Marquez (51-5-1, 37 KO’s) has an important fight coming up this Saturday night against Michael Katsidis (27-2, 22 KO’s) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Marquez, 37, plans on winning that fight and trying to get a third fight with Manny Pacquiao if the Filipino will fight him. If that fight doesn’t happen, and it probably won’t judging by Pacquiao’s lack of enthusiasm for the bout, Marquez is interested in going after a 4th world title at junior welterweight against one of the champions at that weight. Marquez would also be open to fighting Miguel Cotto at a catch weight.
Marquez wasn’t impressed with Antonio Margarito’s recent performance against Pacquiao, saying in an article at fighthub.com, “He [Margarito] looked like an amateur. He looked like he didn’t even know how to move in the ring or what to do in there.” Marquez is right. Margarito looked totally clueless at all times. He had no idea what to do, and it was if he had laced up the gloves for the first time. This, unfortunately, was exactly how he looked in his fights with Shane Mosley and Roberto Garcia recently. You have to wonder whether Margarito’s poor showings in those fights is the main reason he got selected by Bob Arum to face Pacquiao.
It’s hard to believe that if Arum had a skilled junior middleweight like Sergio Martinez in his stable that he would have matched Pacquiao against him if the chances were high that his cash cow would get beaten and thus the gravy train would grind to an abrupt halt with that loss. But with Margarito, Pacquiao was safe because Margarito had been fighting horribly in his last two fights and looked like a completely different fighter after his loss to Mosley.
Marquez doesn’t think Pacquiao best fighter in the world right now, and says this “For me, the best pound-for-pound boxer is Mayweather.” Marquez should know, he fought both Pacquiao and Mayweather, and he was totally dominated by Mayweather. With Pacquiao, Marquez appeared to beat him both times but was given a 12 round draw in their first fight in 2004 and lost a controversial 12 round split decision in 2008. Mayweather clearly did a much better job against Marquez compared to Pacquiao. It’s not even comparable because Mayweather was far superior to Pacquiao.
Speaking about fighting Miguel Cotto, Marquez says “Yes, the possibility of a catch weight, but Bob Arum is a good strategist. He is very mindful ad aware of his fighters, because when Cotto fought Pacquiao, Cotto was already damaged by Margarito. Then after a year suspension for the hand wrap issue, he puts him against Pacquiao, but Mosley left Margarito damaged before that. So, Arum has the landscape very well studied when it comes to matching Pacquiao.”
I totally agree with everything Marquez says about Pacquiao, Arum and Cotto. Arum has done a great job of matching Pacquiao against fighters that have recently been beaten up and no longer look to be the same fighter they once were. Cotto has looked like a shell of himself since the loss to Margarito. And Margarito looked like a completely different fighter since the loss to Mosley and the subsequent hand wrap scandal. Arum has done well matching Pacquiao against Cotto after his wars with Margarito and Joshua Clottey. And he also was was to match Pacquiao up against Margarito after he got blasted out by Mosley and looked terrible against Garcia. It would have been a whole different matter had Pacquiao been matched against a real junior middleweight with talent like Sergio Martienz instead of the pumped up welterweight Margarito.
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