Arum wants to make sure Marquez’s knee is fine before scheduling fight for him

By Boxing News - 02/22/2016 - Comments

marquez45By Dan Ambrose: 42-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (56-7-1, 40 KOs) wants to return to the ring this summer for a tune-up fight to get ready for a possible bout against Puerto Rican star Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) for the end of the year.

Marquez’s injured right knee is 90 percent healed, according to ESPN. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants to make sure that Marquez’s knee is healthy enough for him to fight. Marquez has been out of the ring for almost two years now because of a knee problem that he suffered in May of 2014 in his fight against Mike Alvarado. It’s unknown why Marquez didn’t have surgery on his knee to repair the problem.

“Marquez says his knee is about 90 percent, so we will see how it is for sure before we make any fight for him,” Arum said via ESPN.com.

Marquez will be turning 43 in August, and he’s nearing the end of his career. If he does fight Cotto in late 2016, it likely will be his last fight. Cotto plans on fighting in June. Marquez could have taken that fight then, but he wants a tune-up because he’s been out of the ring for so long. Cotto can’t wait for Marquez, and there’s talk that Cotto could face light welterweight Ruslan Provodnikov in the summer.

“Marquez said he wanted a tune-up fight and then he’d like to fight Cotto,” Arum said. “So we are talking to [promoter] Fernando [Beltran] about arranging a tune-up fight for him in the early summer.”

Putting Marquez in the ring with Cotto is a bad idea at this point in Marquez’s career. It would have been a tough fight if Marquez was in his prime, but with him now 42, with a bad knee, and coming off of a long two-year layoff, it might not even be a fair fight. Cotto is naturally bigger, younger, stronger and healthy. He’s not dealing with a bad knee as far as I know. It’s a safe fight for Cotto, and an easy payday. You’d have to figure that the Cotto-Marquez fight will be televised on HBO pay-per-view, and that brings up another issue. Will HBO televise the Cotto-Marquez fight on PPV if Marquez has an injured knee? Manny Pacquiao fought with an injured right shoulder in his PPV fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May 2015, and a lot of boxing fans were angry at having to pay a lot of money to see a fight with an injured Pacquiao at less than 100 percent. If Marquez comes into the fight injured with Cotto, then it could be something that angers fans if Marquez hobbles around the ring in a PPV fight. That’s why it’s important that Arum makes sure that Marquez is 100 percent healthy before he puts together a fight with him against Cotto or whoever.

With the amount of time that Marquez has been out of the ring, Arum needs to make sure that he doesn’t find someone too good for him, because he could very well lose. If Marquez fights with a bad knee, it might be a problem for him. There’s age and his knee that could be a problem.

Marquez had a huge 6th round knockout win over Manny Pacquiao in 2012 in their fourth fight. However, since that big win for Marquez, he’s fought only twice in losing to Tim Bradley by a 12 round decision in October 2013 and Alvarado in 2014. Marquez was out of the ring for 10 months after his win over Pacquiao in 2012. It’s not surprising that Marquez didn’t look sharp in his fight against Bradley because he’d been out of the ring for so long.



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