SANS PACMAN MARQUEZ MUST REMATCH DIAZ
July 29th, 2010 By Pedro Fernandez
TOUGH TIME TO ASK FOR PPV MONEY?
San Francisco, CA- The Saturday night rematch between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz is good for almost everybody involved. The entity that the fight is not good for is you fans! Think about it, the two fighters get to pocket good six figure purses, the promoters involved make money, but in order for this to happen, you American boxing fans are being asked to shell out $50 bucks in the midst of the worst economy since the Depression of the 1930s.
ARE BOTH GUYS A LIL’ SHY OF SUPERSTAR?
Even though HBO advertised well for what is an encore bout between the willing, pushing Marquez-Diaz II as a PPV package just doesn’t seem to register with me. But as we all know Mexicans residing in the United States hold the single biggest piece of the boxing PPV pie, and Marquez (50-5-1, 37 KOs) is a Mexican National while Diaz (35-3-1, 17 KOs) is Mexican-American. This is what the promoters are banking on
. If they sell 200,000 homes at $50 bucks, the promoters take $5 million and HBO PPV gets $5 million (a 50-50 split is the way it is done)
FIRST FIGHT WAS NEAR CLASSIC!
In case you missed their first encounter, Marquez, 34 and Diaz soon to be 27, the two engaged a war of the willing in February 2009. Since then, Marquez is 0-1 and Diaz is a shaky .500 going 1-1 with Paul Malignaggi. Their first fight raised such a stink that they went a second time and Paulie prevailed.
DIAZ NEEDS A WIN BADLY
One could make a case that Diaz, now 26, has lost five straight fights. If you throw out the UD 12 (see gift) in the first Paulie fight, realize that his fight with Michael Katsides was a split decision at home in Houston, TX, conceivably Diaz could have lost five straight going back to a UD 12 to Nate Campbell in March 2008. Although he has a decade in youth, unless Marquez goes geriatric, Diaz doesn’t look good here.
MARQUEZ’ HBO DEBUT “STUNK”
When I first saw Juan Manuel Marquez in 1999, it was against Freddie Norwood. It was, and I’m sure HBO’s Larry Merchant will back me up on this, one of the most boring matches the network has ever shown. And while I saw little, Prince Naseem Hamed, the then WBO 126 lb. titleholder, he saw more than I as he obviously avoided JMM to the point of what would have been embarrassment, if Hamed hadn’t been making $20 million (Arab TV & HBO) a fight while dodging JMM.
FIGHT WITH MAYWEATHER SHOWED US WHAT?
That September 2009 loss to Floyd Mayweather was JMM’s last outing. A loser via near shutout, Marquez was no match for Mayweather’s speed and guile. Interesting is that Marquez was a near equal after 12 rounds twice with Manny Pacquiao, and he couldn’t get close enough to Mayweather to do anything offensively. Even though Marquez is getting grayer by the day, Pacquiao would seemingly rather fight anyone other than JMM. Seeing the controversy in their fights, and that I have never heard the JMM name come out of his mouth since their second post fight press conference, Manny obviously wants no part of this fading Mexican legend.
MARQUEZ WINS AND FIGHTS “THE GHOST” IF…
Should Robert Guerrero do a number on Joel Casamayor in the semi-main event Saturday and Marquez wins, it’ll be “The Ghost” and JMM before the year is out. Tomorrow we preview Guerrero-Casamayor.
Pedro Fernandez
“Manny obviously wants no part of this fading Mexican legend”………….didnt Manny fight him twice?????….??/
it’s a good card, so why not? the real problem with PPV are the showcase cards where the stars fight a no one in the main event, with a terrible undercard. pac-clottey or dlh-campas for example.
this is not PPV material; I’ll pass and read about it Sunday morning.
compared to BHop vs RJJ 2, Pacman Vs the ghost of CLottey, and Cotto Vs Foreman, this will actually BE ENTERTAINING.
Remember when this was sport as well as entertainment?
Hmmm, novel concept in boxing, I know right?
As far as acting like JMM is a poor man’s superstar, it tells me quite a bit that if I’m not mistaken Mayweather just flaunted the weight limit in their fight by 7 lbs over and paid the fine just to make sure he had every possible advantage which for a guy who loves money like Floyd to pay 100k means he new there was something to fear in JMM and truly wanted that extra size when getting in the ring with JMM.
I like your phrase “war of the willing”: respectful, appreciative, but also tactful, appropriate to the “shy of superstar” category
This fight should be on HBO’s Boxing After Dark.
I remember Marquez’ fight with “Lil Hagler” Norwood, and I agree it was one of the worst, but I think that Norwood was the real cause of the snooze fest.
I really love to see a Pacman-JMM scrap again, but this would be a total mismatch at this point in time, especially if they engaged at 140 lbs or higher. This is tantamount to sending Marquez to the slaughterhouse. He’ll get killed by Pacman.
I am thinking about not buying this fight because of those lying scumbags Schafer an Delahoya especially Oscar saying the pac and money fight was almost done and now he is giving that lame ass excuse.I believe this will be a good card with good action so I will support this so Oscar can buy some new fishnets stockings!!
If Pac and JMM were to fight, at what weight would that be?
If Samuel Peter is actually the substitute, getting the next Wlad Klitschko fight in September, HBO has cut itself out of an attractive bout.
Pedro, you are absolutely n fire lately and right on! Manny fears Marquez and he can’t afford to fight him and look back regardless if he wins because unless he beats him worse than Floyd which is unlikely people will see it as more proof that Floyd is superior!
Main event stinks but the undercard has Pirog versus Jacobs so this card is worth about three fiddy. $3.50.
As a long time Marquez fan, the last thing I would wish on him would be yet another Pacquiao fight. Fighting Pacquiao has been a career changing experience for most of his opponents going back as afar as Ledwhaba – with most guys comming out of it visibly degraded – other than Marquez only Jorge Solis has gone on to have a meaningfull career upswing post-Pacquiao (although not against top flight competition so far…).
Marquez was definitely not the same physically after the first fight. The second one by itself didn’t seem too damaging becasue there were few rounds in which Pacquiao had any sustained offensive success. Still, the cumulative effect, combined with age, rise in weight and punishment absorbed through many tough matchups while also forcing himself into a more marketable style have clearly diminished JMM.
The fact that despite this he’s remained a P4P factor, was the worlds #1 Lightweight as recently as last year, and probably put up a braver fight then Shane Mosely did over the last 9 rounds vs. PBF in an absurd Weltherwight fight … only underscores how JMM has been by any standards of any era a truly great and brilliant fighter.
But enough is enough. I don’t want to see Marquez in the ring with any more guys who have life-altering power at this stage of his career. I’m glad the Valero fight never happened even though I might have slightly favored him to win.
I have no doubt Marquez would take a Pacquiao fight, even with Manny holding all the cards and making it at 147. And even so, as long as Marquez isn;t totally shot, he’d continue to give Pacquiao some trouble – however Marquez could be totally shot (a’la Izzy Vazquez) ANY DAY NOW and if it happened to be vs. Pacquiao at 147 he could get very seriously hurt. Classic “should have known better” matchmaking scenario…
To mention Marquez vs Pacquiao now is irritating. I’ve heard that so many times over and over from different media outlets. Pacquiao is now fighting at Jr Middle while Marquez at Lightweight. If they meet in the middle say at Welter, Marquez will definitely get KOd. Go figure. Marquez should challenge Cotto first, who Pacquiao demolished, and see if he makes it in flying colors. If he does get by Cotto, which I highly doubt, then he gains the right to challenge Pacquiao. How about Kermit Cintron vs Marquez? I think Cotto would be more willing to go down to Welter, and Marquez willing to go up. I’d like to see Marquez vs Cotto!
Tony,
Pac is not fighting at Jr. Middle it’s a catchweight fight, with another welter. People need to stop giving Pac credit for this fight vs Cheato.
DA SKERGE
The main event has the makins of a good scrap again, and the undercard looks quite good with good matches of known fighters. The card as a whole, is worth it. Why pay $50 for 1 fight, when you can get 4 good to great ones.
DA SKERGE
An older, slowed down Marquez has no business fighting in the 140′s and it shouldn’t be happening.
Marquez was making 126 as late as his 33rd year!! When you are making 126 well past 30 comfortably enough to go 12 hard rounds (usually getting stronger as the fight goes on…) you ARE 100% Featherweight.
In rounds 3,4 & 5, against Mayweather, JMM landed some right hands and body shots which had no effect. Against career Feathers & Lightweights, these punches normally do damage, take away confidence & rythm.
In the begining of round 8 or 9 (my vcr is broke…) Marquez perfectly timmed a Mayweather slide-in and delivered a left hook to the side of the jaw – the punch just pancaked on Floyd, who didn’t break stride throwing his right hand – which missed only because Marquez was pushed back a step by the energy return from his own punch.
Folks, that’s a Featherweight lifer!
The PacMan has beaten JMM twice (first one was a draw just because of a mistake by one judge in scoring) and knocked out JMM four times – what else does we want to see in PacMan-JMM III? Really?