By Jim Dower: There were no surprises with Juan Manuel Marquez and Sergiy Fedchenko during Friday’s weigh-in for their clash for the WBO interim light welterweight title on Saturday in Mexico City, Mexico. Marquez, 38, came in right at the light welterweight limit at 140, and looked in great shape with no signs of being weight drained unlike Brandon Rios. Marquez’s opponent Fedchenko, came in at 138.60.

Fedchenko appears to be out of his class with this fight, as he’s never been in with a fighter nearly as good as Marquez and he doesn’t have the offense to make this a tough fight. It’s always possible that Fedchenko’s fighting style and his youth could give Marquez some problems in this fight but I don’t see that happening. Fedchenko likes to trade a little, and against a fighter as skilled as Marquez that’s not a good idea. It could lead to Fedchenko getting beaten up and out-pointed if he doesn’t get stopped first.

Marquez is looking to pick up the World Boxing Organization title and then move onto a fourth fight against WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao later on in the year. A win over Fedchenko probably won’t get Marquez the keys to a fight against Pacquiao unfortunately. It looks like Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum really wants Marquez to do him a big favor and face Rios first in the summer and if Marquez wins that fight he’ll get a rematch with Manny. Will Arum hold up the Pacquiao-Marquez rematch until Marquez fights Rios? I doubt it. Arum respects Marquez a ton and he can do really well by matching him against another one of his Top Rank fighters Mercito Gesta on the same date as he was looking to put Marquez in with Rios on July 14th at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The undefeated lightweight contender Gesta could really use the shot in the arm career-wise that a fight against Marquez would give him. However, I don’t see Gesta getting the same benefit out of it that Rios would get simply because Gesta isn’t as arguably skilled as Rios and would likely end up dominated and beaten up by Marquez. That’s no good if you’re trying to increase the popularity of Gesta. He’s got to fight at a high level against Marquez for him to get a bounce from the defeat in terms of popularity.

Here are some of the other weights for the undercard:

Daniel Sandoval 146.75 – Michael Rosales 146.30
Saul Roman 156.20 – Richard Gutierrez 155.10
Juan Estrada 114.40 – Jonathan Lecona 114