Hatton: Marquez didn’t knock Pacquiao out with a lucky punch

By Boxing News - 12/15/2012 - Comments

marquez9025By Chris Williams: Former two division world champion Ricky Hatton doesn’t believe that Juan Manuel Marquez’s 6th round knockout win over Manny Pacquiao last Saturday night was the result of Marquez somehow getting lucky and landing a homerun right hand on the chin of the Filipino. Hatton saw it as pure skill on Marquez’s part that propelled him to victory by hitting a wide open Pacquiao when he forgot his defense and didn’t realize he was in with a highly skilled professional.

Hatton said to Philstar.com “I was surprised how big [Marquez] was. He was extremely big. I don’t think it was a lucky punch that hit Manny. Marquez waited for his chance. It was a perfect punch. Manny got careless coming in and Marquez took advantage of the opportunity.”

Marquez wasn’t anymore heavy than he was for his last fight with Pacquiao last November. It might look that way because Marquez took off fat and replaced it with muscle, but his actual weight was the same as it was before. Pacquiao actually out-weighed Marquez for this fight, but unfortunately for Pacquiao his weight was centered mostly in his legs where it couldn’t really help him.

Pacquiao needed the upper body muscle that Marquez had, but Pacquiao blew his chance by not working with his strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza like he’d done in the past. Marquez used the modern approach to training by working hard with his strength coach Angel Heredia, who is quickly becoming the best in the business at building strength for his fighters.

Hatton is definitely right about Marquez’s knockout punch not being a lucky punch, because you could see that Marquez sent back to the ropes and waited on Pacquiao to come forward towards him. Marquez blasted Pacquiao with a beautiful right hand as soon as the Filipino got close enough for him to throw it. That wasn’t luck.

Pacquiao really needs some work on his defense, and it wouldn’t hurt if he were to have Ariza restart his strength and conditioning program that he had a lot of success with Pacquiao when he moved up to welterweight and was still fighting at a high level.



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