By Chris Williams: This Saturday night WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao will be defending his title against Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Going into the fight it was thought that Pacquiao would have too much of a size advantage against the 38-year-old Marquez, who has been fighting at lightweight rather than welterweight like Pacquiao.

Marquez, with the help of his new strength and conditioning coach Angel Hernandez, has put on a lot of muscle and now appears to be both bigger and stronger than Pacquiao after only 8 weeks of being under the guidance of Hernandez. That just shows how good Hernandez is, because he’s been able to put a lot of pure muscle on Marquez’s frame while at the same time not adding fat and slowing him down.

Trainer Emanuel Steward is impressed with the size that Marquez has put on and feels he’s now got a really good chance of beating Pacquiao this Saturday night. Steward said this on eastsideboxing.com’s On the Ropes Boxing Radio Program: “I think it will give him a chance to neutralize what I think is the biggest advantage [Pacquiao’s size] for Pacquiao going into this fight…The biggest difference I see in this fight is Manny, I feel, is naturally about 8-10 pounds of solid weight bigger than Marquez.”

With the extra muscles and strength that he’s put on his frame, Marquez not only looks to be the bigger fighter with more muscle than Pacquiao, but he also is clearly throwing with much more power than the Filipino. That’s bad news if you’re a fan for Pacquiao, because his power and size were two of his most important advantages over Marquez besides his speed. If you take Pacquiao’s size and power advantage away, he’s like a butterfly that’s had both wings clipped off and is forced to crawl around the ring. We already know that Pacquiao doesn’t move like he used to and is more of a plodder now. He can still punch with speed, but that advantage isn’t a huge one. If he’s getting hit with really hard counter shots from Marquez all night long, we could see Pacquiao get busted up and forced to fight with cut up eyes, a bloody nose and busted lips. Pacquiao is a much more limited fighter once he’s been cut. I can see him bleeding and fighting tentatively while his trainer Freddie Roach is yakking away uselessly between rounds.