Finally, after years of mismanagement and miscalculations, Juan Manuel Marquez is going to get the opportunity to fight a superstar in a super fight when he faces Marco Antonio Barrera.
Marquez has never been very lucky. He was the WBO’s No. 1-ranked challenger for a two-year period in the late 1990s while Prince Naseem Hamed was champion. You know how the organizations are, the WBO loved Hamed and the publicity and income that his fights generated and kept granting him extension after extension. They even declared Hamed a so-called “super champion,” which gave the charismatic puncher even more leeway to legally side-step his mandatory defense against Marquez. After all the waiting, bickering and negotiating Marquez realized Hamed would never step in the ring with him and in September 1999 fought undefeated southpaw Feddie Norwood for the WBA 126-pound title in a boring scrap that, in all honesty, could have gone either way.
Ten wins and 3 1/2 years later, Marquez won his first title, the vacant IBF 126-pound title with a dominating seventh-round knockout of Manuel Medina in February 2003. Later that year he partially unified when he practically chased Derrick Gainer out of the ring.
Marquez’s next big break came in May 2004 when he fought Manny Pacquiao on HBO. After being dropped three times and almost knocked out in the first, he battled his way back to at least even terms through the rest of the fight and salvaged a legitimate draw.
After the bout Top Rank offered Marquez $750,000 for a Pacquiao rematch, but his manager, Nacho Beristein, refused the offer. Erik Morales’ people stepped in and took the fight with Pac-Man and Marquez ended up being stripped of his title for failing to defend against the WBA interim champ Chris John.
During the time that Marquez’s management was squabbling with Bob Arum over how he mistreated Marquez by maneuvering his star Morales into a fight with the Pacquiao, the WBA made John the sole owner of their championship and made Marquez it’s No. 1 contender and called for a purse bid.
Marquez, who was really the champion since he hadn’t lost the title in the ring, had to go to Indonesia to fight a tall, awkward, undefeated challenger in his hometown as a challenger for a measly $30,000. Marquez lost a controversial decision and has been trying to get his career back on course ever since.
Marquez received an early present when a rematch talks for Pacquiao-Barrera fell apart, and he was able to land a genuine superfight against Barrera. The fight should be very competitive, even if it’s going to happen when his performances have shown that he’s on the decline at the age of 33. Pacquiao already had a win over Barrera when Marquez fought him to a draw, but he hadn’t developed into the international box office superstar that he is today and the match wasn’t viewed as a super attraction like this one is today.
You have to commend Golden Boy Promotions for giving Marquez the shot. Nobody else has, but it’s not because Oscar De La Hoya wants to live up to his promise to finally help Marquez realize his potential or because he wants to make a great fight between two astute Mexican gladiators. No, the Barrera-Marquez match has grown out of all the things that are wrong with boxing and it’s going to happen in 2007 because Barrera-Pacquiao probably isn’t. And ironically it might be the best fight of 2007.
Golden Boy has done some major promotions with Barrera and realizes that his marketability isn’t on the level of De La Hoya’s. Golden Boy can’t make money with Barrera unless he’s in there with someone that the public views as a live underdog. Barrera’s fights with Mzonke Fana and Robbie Peden were pay-per-view busts. The fight with Fana did 75,000 buys and the fight with Peden did marginally better with 110,000 buys.
Barrera needs to fight live opponents because Latin boxing fans are very knowledgeable observers and know the difference between a mere showcase and a legitimate prizefight. The Hispanic market is what drives the pay-per-view sales on Barrera’s fights.
What other matchup could De La Hoya have made for Barrera? A fight with Jorge Barrios would have been attractive, but he just lost and a fight with his conqueror, Joan Guzman, would have been way too risky. They probably would have went after Jesus Chavez, but the tough Texan has to defend against the interim champ Julio Diaz.
Bernard Hopkins’ reign as IBF champ showed that, above all else, a fighter without exceptional marketability needs to keep his title. A fight with Morales would still sell tickets because it’s a famous rivalry and it’s guaranteed to be a barn-burner, but because of Barrera’s ongoing fued with Bob Arum, magnified by the power struggle over the promotional rights of Pacquiao, that fight would not be possible.
Barrera has earned his right to a superfight with Pacquiao and has already solidified his position with his conclusive win over Rocky Juarez. Golden Boy Promotions is acting unprofessionally and taking things far too personally. This is boxing, it’s not a rendition of the film “The Notebook.” Barrera is in his 30s and has had a lot of wars and just fought in September. He could have waited out all of 2006 and it wouldn’t have significantly hurt his chances against Pacquiao if he ended up fighting him late in the year.
Which brings us to Marquez. Marquez is respected throughout the industry and is very well known in Mexico. The pay-per-view should not have a problem doing solid numbers. Fights with hungry guys like Marquez, who never truly reached the mountain top like Barrera did with his win over Hamed, are always going to be there.
If Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Shaefer had the boxing acumen of a Joe Jacobs or even a Shelly Finkel, he would have worked to make the fight between Pacquiao and Barrera. It’s the biggest most lucrative fight below 147. They should have had a sit-down at the HBO offices with Pacquiao and his plethora of representatives, the HBO suits, representatives of Golden Boy, and representatives of Top Rank and hammered out a deal. It could be a 50-50 co-promotion. It’s possible.
Arum’s worked with Don King before on the De La Hoya-Trinidad fight and everybody knows that Arum has an eternal hatred for King. Golden Boy Promotions doesn’t want to take that route and believe they have the legal rights to Pacquiao. De La Hoya thinks he’ll be victorious in court against Arum, just like he was when he broke his promotional accord with the Harvard law-trained promoter. This time, it’s a lot different. Courts are more inclined to find in favor of an individual athlete seeking his independence from a restrictive contract than a promoter who is seeking the contractual obligations of an athlete.
Arum’s contract with Paquiao is legitimate because it preceeds the contract De La Hoya signed with Pacquiao. Not the one Arum announced right after Pacquiao’s third fight with Morales. The one for the Morales fights, which forbade Pacquiao from entering in another promotional agreement until after his series with Morales. How can Golden Boy say Top Rank stole Pacquiao when Arum already had him under a contract agreement?
All is well that ends well, and all of this bickering has brought about the inception of a beautiful fight that nobody believed would happen. And if Barrera can somehow maintain his spot on top of the mountain and prevail yet again against another decorated gladiator, then the public will demand the fight with Pacquiao and it could still happen before the end of the year.
Brent Matteo Alderson has been part of the staff at BoxingScene.com since 2004
