(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Jr got in a shot at Manny Pacquiao in reminding the Filipino fighter of his struggles against Juan Manuel Marquez, who Pacquiao was forced to fight four times due to the controversy that surrounded their first three fights.
While Pacquiao was never able to beat Marquez without controversy, Mayweather easily defeated Marquez by a 12 round decision in 2009.
“I look at this fight as just another fight,” Mayweather said via Skysports.com. “I’ve faced Marquez before; he’s [Pacquiao] faced Marquez four times.”
Mayweather had to fight Jose Luis Castillo and Marcos Maidana twice to get things right after their first fights were somewhat close, but Mayweather got it right in the rematches with both fighters to get clear victories.
Marquez always seemed to present a riddle for Pacquiao that he couldn’t figure out due to the Mexican warrior’s expert counter punching , power and aggressiveness.
Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach would likely fire back an excuse about how they were intentionally slugging it out with Marquez in order to make it more interesting for the boxing fans watching it on television and live.
That excuse really doesn’t hold water, because even if Pacquiao did try and box Marquez by fighting him in a clever manner, Marquez would be waiting for Pacquiao each time he came forward to throw a shot. That’s the way Marquez is. He times his opponents and nails them each time they look to throw something at him. That’s why he was able to KO Pacquiao the last time they fought in 2012. Marquez first dropped Pacquiao in the 3rd round with a right hand. A little while later, Marquez timed Pacquiao and knocked him cold with a right hand to the head.
“If I didn’t get the job done right the first time, I would have come back around and got it done right the second time. I haven’t had to go to number three and number four but some fighters have to,” Mayweather said. “One thing I do know – in any sport, if you’ve lost before then losing is in your mind.”
It is troubling that Pacquiao couldn’t get it right against Marquez on the 2nd, 3rd or even the 4th time that they fought. Pacquiao was given controversial decision wins over Marquez in their 2nd and 3rd fights.
Many boxing fans saw Marquez winning the first three fights, and getting robbed by the judges. I saw the fights myself, and I had Marquez winning all of them, but that’s me. I score fights on ring generalship and round by round. There’s no way Marquez deserved a draw in the 1st fight and a loss in the 2nd and 3rd fights.
“At this level you have to work smarter, not harder,” Mayweather said said. “I know what it takes in a fight of this magnitude. I asked my team to make this happen and they went out and did what they had to do.”
Mayweather did a great job of putting the fight together with Pacquiao. It’s nice that he finally got the fight made after all these years.
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