Pacquiao’s achievement has one major spike in its side. No, it’s not the “Money” Mayweather spike that has overshadowed any related boxing talk. It’s the “Dinamita” spike known as Juan Manuel Marquez. No matter how many opponents the obliterates and championship titles he collects, the Filipino has been disturbed by his closely contested fights with the Mexican that still leaves fans wondering if the two fighters would have switched spots on the pound for pound rankings if Marquez would have won an extra round or two in and took home victories in both of their battles. Instead, Pacquiao sits at a fulfilling 1-0-1 in his two fights with Marquez over the last seven years.
“He was saying he got robbed in the first two fights. This fight will answer all of the doubts and all the questions,” Pacquiao (53-3-2, 38 KOs) said on a meeting as the final days tick off the calendar before their third fight on November 12 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV. As much as Pacquiao has walked through his foes over the past few years, he is well conscious that Marquez (53-5-1, 39 KOs) has been persistent in saying that he has Pacquiao’s number.
Even though Pacquiao right now is bigger, stronger and quicker than the two versions that faced Marquez in 2004 and 2008, Pacquiao promises that he won’t head into this fight thought that he can just walk over the man that pressed him to the brink.
“I will never underestimate Márquez,” Pacquiao says. “I prepared hard for this fight and feel physically powerful. This is a lot different because over the past few years I have enhanced a lot. I think I am a lot improved now mostly because of my right hand. There is also a big dissimilarity in my power and moving up in weight from our last fights is going to be a difference.”
Without a doubt the one thing that everyone notices is that Pacquiao’s move up in weight hasn’t took any of the power from his punches. On the contrary, Marquez has only fought above 140lbs once in his career and a guy named Mayweather conquered him en route to a 12-round unanimous decision. It’s no secret that Pacquiao will have a size and strength advantage on November 12 and Marquez has been busy stuffing on the muscle to do his best to cancel out those advantages. Pacquiao simply isn’t worried about what Marquez looks like in the ring. In all honesty, he sees a bigger Marquez who wants to go to war as a welcome enemy.
“He definitely looks bigger and stronger,” he says. “He will be easier to see which will help us. He’s probably been doing some heavy lifting to make him stronger. If Márquez wants to come attack us we are 100% ready for that.”
The one thing that Pacquiao cannot afford is another close decision. You can expect that Pacquiao wants to end this one with an exclamation mark but he won’t go as far to say that he’ll be looking for a knockout.
“I am not going to say I am going to knock Márquez out but I will say that I trained really hard for this fight and we did a lot of things and made a lot of sacrifices so if the knockout comes it will come,” he says. “If the knockout comes it will be a reward for the hard work that I did.”
