By Sean McDaniel: 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (55-7-1, 40 KO’s) says he’s not interested in any other fights but a rematch with WBO welterweight champion Tom Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s), who beat him earlier this month on October 12th by a narrow 12 round split decision in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bradley defeated Marquez by the scores 115-113, 116-112 and 113-115.
Marquez says he doesn’t want to fight to continue fighting if he can’t get the rematch against Bradley.
Here’s the catch: If Marquez can get the rematch with Bradley, it has to be in Mexico. Marquez doesn’t want to have another fight between them take place in Las Vegas.
Marquez told The Record “I have to settle the issue of Timothy Bradley. As long as he accepts a rematch to make it clear who on October 12th. I want no other opponent. It would be held in Mexico.”
It’s possible that Marquez can get a rematch against Bradley, but it’ll mean that he’ll have to do a lot of waiting before he eventually gets that fight because Bradley will likely face Manny Pacquiao in a rematch next. That’s one of the fight options that Bob Arum has mentioned that he wants to put together. Arum is also interested in staging a Pacquiao vs. Marquez fifth fight if Marquez is open to that. It doesn’t look like he is though.
If turning down the Pacquiao fight means that Marquez will have to sit around for a long time waiting for the Pacquiao-Bradley rematch to take place, then Marquez should tell Arum that he’d like to face Pacquiao next followed by a rematch against Bradley. If Marquez fails to get the Pacquiao rematch in his next fight, then we’ll likely see Arum making the Pacquiao-Bradley fight.
Bradley will probably not agree to fighting Marquez in Mexico, so that’s something that will have to change on Marquez’s part because Bradley will likely never agree to that as long as he lives. At best, it’s possible that Bradley will accept a fight against Marquez in California, but I don’t know if Bob Arum will be excited about that or not. He’ll probably want the fight to be staged in a venue where there is sure to be a large gate, and that might not be possible unless the rematch takes place in Las Vegas. It might sell if they stage the rematch in Los Angeles, but that’s probably the only place where it would sell a ton of tickets.
Marquez will have to change his fighting strategy in the rematch if he wants to beat Bradley because sitting back and waiting for counter punching opportunities won’t work. Marquez needs to fight like Ruslan Provodnikov did when he fought Bradley last Marquez, and that involves a lot of pressure being put on him and a lot of left hooks. Provodnikov found a great deal of success using his left hook.
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