Marquez’s trainer doesn’t want him to take Pacquiao fight

By Boxing News - 05/23/2014 - Comments

marquez8By Chris Williams: Trainer Nacho Beristain is hoping to talk his fighter Juan Manuel Marquez (56-7-1, 40’s) out of facing Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KO’s) in November. Marquez is undecided whether he’ll take the fight with the 35-year-old Pacquiao after beating Mike Alvarado in a WBO welterweight eliminator bout this month.

The World Boxing Organization set the fight up as an eliminator bout for their 147 lb. strap despite Alvarado never having fought in the division and having no ranking in their top 15 at the time of the fight. Marquez wasn’t ranked in the top 15 either by the WBO.

“I do not care what you have to do , I do not care who is angry, but I will do everything possible to prevent Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao from stepping into the ring with Pacquiao a fifth time ,” said Beristain to ESPN. [He] has nothing to prove, people will remember you for what you did in your career, for having given big fights people and for having faced the best of his time,” Beristain said.

Beristain is right. Marquez doesn’t have anything to prove. He already fought Pacquiao four times and arguably beat him all four times. What more does he need to prove after that? At 40, Marquez should be looking to take it easy because he’s made good money in the sport, and he doesn’t need to keep fighting. It’s not like Marquez is 35 like Pacquiao. He’s 40 now, and he’s already shown himself to be more than a match for Pacquiao in their 4 fights together.

It’s very likely that even if they fought in November, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum would be looking to get Marquez to agree to fight with Pacquiao in 2015, especially if their fight brought in good pay-per-view numbers. It would just keep going on and on and on, as long as that good green cash kept flowing in. Marquez would be the guy that keeps getting trotted out to fight Pacquiao, because he’s really the only guy now that Pacquiao can fight that brings in good PPV numbers at this late stage in his career.

Marquez wants the WBO 147lb strap that Pacquiao has because that would be his 5th division world title. But from the way I see it, Marquez really wouldn’t be accomplishing much because the division is watered down with multiple champions, and belt he’d be winning wouldn’t be seen as the real welterweight champion, because boxing fans see Mayeather, the WBA/WBC champion, as the real welterweight champ at 147. As such, unless Marquez wants to fight the real mccoy, all he’ll be fighting for is a paper title if he faces Pacquiao.

If I was into collecting straps so I can show them off to friends, I wouldn’t want my friends pointing out that Mayweather is the real champion in the welterweight division. So unless Marquez wants to fight Pacquiao for just the cash that he’ll get for the fight, he might as well forge the whole thing. If it’s the money Marquez wants, he should do what Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is doing with WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara by telling him he doesn’t want to fight him with his WBA title on the line, because he sees Mayweather as the legitimate WBA 154 lb. champion.



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