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Can Marquez Carry
That Weight?
By Nat Gottlieb Courtesy of HBO.com Late in his career, Juan Manuel Marquez left his natural division of featherweight, primarily to pursue Manny Pacquiao, first at 130 pounds and then at 135. Before he can get a third fight with Pacquiao, however, he must get past one of the division's best, Joel Casamayor. Has Marquez bitten off more than he can chew?
This fight brings together two of the
best pure boxers in the sport. Both are counter-punchers who
rarely make mistakes and punish opponents who do. So how do
you separate them? Size may be the only difference.
Marquez has no problem making the
126-pound featherweight limit and acknowledges that
Casamayor is the bigger man, although they are both the same
height at 5 feet 7 inches. What gives Casamayor the edge is
that he has fought his entire career at junior lightweight
and lightweight against bigger men, while Marquez has faced
featherweights in all but four of his 53 fights.
"I give Casamayor the advantage in
weight, but it's not going to be a lot," Marquez told the
Mexican newspaper ESTO. "At junior lightweight I felt good;
I was the world champion. But now that I am training for the
lightweight division, I feel very strong, too."
Marquez's trainer, the great Ignacio
"Nacho" Beristain, has been addressing the size problem in
training camp but still concedes that Casamayor will walk
into the ring the bigger man.
"Juan has been lifting more weights to
focus on gaining strength and muscle," Beristain said. "We
have changed his diet as well. He has been eating more
carbohydrates to gain the extra weight. The weight is
definitely an advantage for Casamayor, because after the
weigh-in, Juan will not gain that much weight. He will
probably fight around 142 pounds at the most, while
Casamayor will definitely go up more than that."
The size difference will become more of
a factor because the two counter-punchers have recently
changed their styles to become more aggressive in the ring.
For most of their careers, they were willing to let their
opponents come to them and throw the first punches. Now,
they seem willing to come forward and take chances. If they
both bring the action, it remains to be seen if Marquez has
the power at this weight to hurt Casamayor - or take the
Cuban's punches, for that matter.
"If Marquez stands in front of
Casamayor, the edge would go to Casamayor because he has
more power and has shown that even when knocked down, he can
get up and win," said Ramiro Gonzalez, a longtime boxing
writer for the Spanish language newspaper La Opinion and now
director of public relations for Golden Boy Promotions.
Casamayor has never been stopped, and as
Gonzalez said, even when you drop him - like Michael
Katsidis did in the Cuban's last fight - he has repeatedly
shown the ability to get up from the canvas and beat you.
Against the hard-hitting, all-action Katsidis, who was
unbeaten when they fought in March, Casamayor hit the deck
in the sixth round. He got up, and despite the knockdown and
a point deducted for a low blow in the 9th round, he was
only trailing by a point on two cards when the 10th round
started. Casamayor imposed his will on Katsidis and
unleashed a hard counter left hook that dropped Katsidis for
the second time in the fight and closed the show, with
referee Jon Schorle stopping the action with 30 seconds left
in the round.
It was not the first time the former
Olympic gold medalist had pulled it off. Diego Corrales,
Daniel Seda and Jose Armando Santa Cruz each put Casamayor
down once, and he came back to beat all three, although the
Santa Cruz split decision was considered a robbery by many
at ringside.
Marquez also has a solid chin. He has
tasted canvas in just one fight, that being his monumental
bout with Pacquiao in 2004. Pacquiao knocked Marquez down
three times in an explosive first round, but the Mexican
kept getting up and then proceeded to keep his opponent at
bay by boxing him beautifully. As a result, Marquez came
away with a draw. Pacquiao's concussive power outstrips
Casamayor's, however, so it is unlikely the Cuban will be
able to knock Marquez out.
One reason Casamayor (36-3-1, 22 KOs)
has stepped up his aggression is that he feels he has been
burned several times by judges in very close fights, a
sentiment that's not too far from the mark. Casamayor's
first loss came in 2002 at the hands of Acelino Freitas,
whose power-packed fists dominated the junior lightweight
division for several years. Freitas was awarded a unanimous
decision, but the margin of victory was just two points on
all three cards. Two years later Casamayor again lost a very
tight fight, this time by a split decision. Of the two
judges who called it for Corrales, the margin was an
identical three points. Casamayor suffered another
split-decision loss against Jose Luis Castillo in December
of 2004. Since then he has not been beaten, winning five
straight fights while drawing with Almazbek "Kid Diamond"
Raiymkulov, who has lost just once in 28 bouts.
Against Katsidis, a brutally aggressive
fighter in the Arturo Gatti style, Casamayor decided to
fight fire with fire, bringing the action with a new focus
on power punches.
"Throughout his career, people saw him
boxing," said Casamayor's promoter, Oscar De La Hoya of
Golden Boy. "But now he is sitting down more, planting his
feet and throwing a lot more punches and being very
aggressive."
Gonzalez says Casamayor, at 37 years
old, doesn't have much choice but to take the initiative and
stand in front of his opponent. "I believe Marquez has a
chance to win this fight because Casamayor doesn't have the
nice movement and balance in his legs that he had when he
was younger," Gonzalez said. (Worth noting is that those
legs carried Casamayor through 393 amateur fights - and
winning a remarkable 363 of them. In contrast, Marquez had
just 36 amateur fights, winning 35 before turning pro at
19).
Marquez (48-4-1, 35 KOs) is no spring
chicken either, having turned 35 last month. So far, he has
not shown his age, so he could be considered the younger man
despite only a two-year difference in age.
Like Casamayor, Marquez has also revved
up the action recently. In his last three fights --
victories over Marco Antonio Barrera and Rocky Juarez, and a
close-decision loss to Pacquiao -- Marquez threw more lead
punches than he had during the majority of his career.
This spike in the action for both boxers
comes after careers spent in relative obscurity, their elite
status recognized primarily by analysts and serious fans.
The fighters' slick, counter-punching styles just didn't
appeal as much to crowds who prefer bloodbaths and
all-action fights.
"At this point in their careers, they
have to be more aggressive if they want to get fights with
people like Pacquiao," Gonzalez said. "I think the reason
Marquez was not as aggressive earlier in his career is
because of his trainer. Nacho Beristain is a great trainer,
but he teaches his fighters caution. Recently when Marquez
has been more explosive in a round, when he got to his
corner Nacho would tell him to fight more carefully."
As much as these two boxers seem to have
in common, however, one important distinction can be made.
Casamayor has beaten two elite fighters in their prime, the
then unbeaten and current unified lightweight champion Nate
Campbell, and Corrales in 2003. There are no such names on
Marquez's record. Marquez beat Robbie Peden, a decent
fighter who would briefly become a champion, in 2002. But
the Aussie never attained elite status. Marquez drew with
Pacquiao, and the only other elite fighter he faced was a
faded Barrera, whom he beat last year. Barrera retired after
his next fight.
But the Casamayor camp knows Marquez is
still an A-list boxer, one who is on everyone's
pound-for-pound list. They are preparing the him hard for
this fight. "Joel has fought guys that were as good and
well-proven as Marquez in the past," said Casamayor's
trainer, Roger Bloodworth. "This camp has been a little
different for Joel. He's a little more intense and focused
than in past camps. He seems more dedicated."
In a deep division with a lot of
potentially big fights, the stakes in this match-up are
enormous. So are the questions that must be answered about
both boxers. Will Casamayor have the legs to keep up with
the slick-moving Marquez? Will Marquez be as good at 135
pounds as he was at featherweight? As Larry Merchant is fond
of saying, "That's why they fight the fights."
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