By Chris Williams: Supposedly the upcoming fourth fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez on December 8th is supposed to settle the controversy surrounding the previous fights between the two fighters. I don’t know why but this one fight on December 8th is supposed to settle who is and has been the better fighter during all this time.

But what if this fight is just as controversial as the other three? Will boxing fans have to sit through a 5th fight between them to find out? I have a feeling that’s the direction we’re heading in because Pacquiao isn’t going to dominate anyway and the only way he’ll win this fight will be like the last two times he fought Marquez where he was given controversial decision wins.

Pacquiao obviously would like nothing better than to KO to Marquez so that we don’t have the risk of three judges scoring a fight that runs counter to what actually transpired in the ring, but that’s probably not going to happen and I’m surprised that Pacquiao has been wasting his breath talking about it. Marquez, 39, has never been knocked out before and if a prime Pacquiao couldn’t do it in 2004, then it’s simply not possible right now. I think be possible if Pacquiao continues to fight Marquez until both of them are using walkers and canes to move around the ring. Yes, maybe Pacquiao can stop Marquez when he’s in his 70s and is feeble, but not now. It’s not going to happen.

Marquez’s counter punching is going to negate everything that Pacquiao does in this fight on December 8th, and he’s going to end up looking bad like he did in all three previous fights where Marquez countered every move that he made. This fight won’t be any different, because Marquez knows Pacquiao’s style too well and he seems to really like fighting this guy. If you were to make the perfect fighter for Marquez do well again it would come out to another Pacquiao, because he’s really got this guys number. However, I don’t see this fight settling the rivalry one bit. If the judges give it to Pacquiao, it’ll almost certainly be another duplicate of the three previous fights where Marquez dominates but Pacquiao, he more popular fighter overall in terms of fans, gets either a decision or a draw. And if Pacquiao loses the fight, we’ll probably see him saying he really won the fight.

Look at Pacquiao’s comments about his loss to Bradley. Pacquiao said to Yahoo Sports News: “I already beat Bradley. Everyone knows it. I just didn’t get my hand raised.” You think it would be any different if Pacquiao lost to Marquez? I don’t. I think Pacquiao would just parrot what his diehard fans are saying by claiming he should have won the fight. Then we’d likely see Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum lining Pacquiao and Marquez back up for a 5th fight.

Besides the controversy bit, there won’t be much proved even if one of these guys loses the fight convincingly. Pacquiao and Marquez are both getting old, and there’s a point now where you’re really not settling anything. When two guys are way up there in age you’re only showing who the better fighter is at that age than who the better fighter was during their primes. It’s like watching Sugar Ray Leonard get easily beaten by Hector “Macho” Camacho when Leonard was way past his prime. The win for Camacho didn’t prove he was a better fighter than Leonard. He only proved he was better than an old and past his prime Leonard, whose reflexes were shot.