Four years ago, Manny Pacquiao exploded onto the world boxing scene by absolutely destroying Marco Antonio Barrera. It was a fight that many gave the Filipino phenom a shot at winning, but nobody suspected that he would absolutely dominate Barrera from beginning to end. Yet, he made it look easy, and he made himself look almost unstoppable in the process.
When a fight against another Mexican warrior was announced for Pacquiao a few months later (in March 2004), many expected it would be much of the same. For a while it looked like they were right, as the first round of that fight seemingly picked up where the Barrera fight left off; with Pacquiao coming out, guns blazing and dropping Juan Manuel Marquez three times and badly breaking his nose before the end of the first round.
However, Marquez did not fold in the second round, although clearly losing it as well, and slowly started to pick up momentum as the fight progressed. He actually went on to win the majority of the rest of the rounds in what became a surprisingly competitive match. Marquez fought back hard, making Manny Pacquiao look like a one-dimensional fighter, although he did not dominate Pacquiao by any means.
By the end of the Round 12, Marquez had clearly made the fight much closer than anyone who saw the first round would have anticipated. However, he had dug himself into such a deep hole after the first couple of rounds that it seemed he would still find himself on the losing end of the judges? decision.
But when the judges? scorecards were read, the final verdict was that Juan Manuel Marquez had earned himself a draw. The scores were all over the map: 115-110 Marquez, 113-113 and 115-110 Pacquiao. So one judge had seen fit to give Marquez every single round after the second, one scored it 7-5 in favour of Pacquiao, and one scored it a draw (giving seven rounds to Marquez). However, the judge who had it a draw mistakenly only scored the first round 10-7 for Pacquiao while the other two judges had correctly awarded Pacquiao a 10-6 round for scoring three knockdowns against Marquez.
The decision had controversy written all over it and the result was much less than satisfactory for what had been such a dramatic fight. However, although FightFan.com scored the bout 114-111 in favour of Pacquiao, we gave six of the last ten rounds to Marquez, and the fact that Marquez was able to dig himself out of such a deficit and make it a close fight raised some serious concerns about the Pacman. Had Marquez figured him out? Was Manny just a one-dimensional fighter? What would happen in a rematch if Marquez were able to continue his success in avoiding Pacquiao?s straight left hand?
It seemed as though the two fighters were on track to fight a rematch and settle the score, but when it came time to sign for the fight, Marquez was unhappy with the financial terms he was offered and elected to move in another direction, leaving Manny Pacquiao without the opportunity to answer the questions that the Marquez fight had raised of him.
Marquez went on to lose his title to Chris John of Indonesia and fought in relative obscurity for a couple of years while Pacquiao got back on track. Pacman’s star continued to rise with his epic trilogy with Eric Morales and his solid wins over Oscar Larios, Hector Velazquez and Jorge Solis. He had also developed into a multi-dimensional nightmare along the way, under the guidance of trainer Freddie Roach.
For a while, it looked like the window for their long-awaited rematch had closed, and the world would neither get too see, nor demand to see, Pacquiao and Marquez try to settle the score in the ring.
However, in March of 2007, Marquez finally caught a break by landing a high-profile fight against Marco Antonio Barrera, thanks in part to a promotional feud over Pacquiao between Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions. Their fight was a back-and-forth battle, but in the end, Marquez had shown that he was still an elite level fighter and earned a unanimous decision over Barrera with his masterful boxing skills.
Marquez? win had put him back in the spotlight and finally created the kind of demand necessary to put together a rematch with Pacquiao. Even more intriguing is the fact that Manny has greatly improved as a fighter since their first epic matchup, as evidenced in his dominating, decision win over Barrera earlier this month.
The question is no longer, ?Is a one-dimensional Manny Pacquiao enough to beat Juan Manuel Marquez in a rematch?? but rather, ?How is Juan Manuel Marquez going to deal with the new and improved Manny Pacquiao??
There has never been a better time for this rematch to take place, and the fact that it didn?t take place a couple of years ago seems to have been a blessing in disguise.
Pacquiao vs. Marquez II is one of the most important fights to be made in boxing, and it needs to happen ? NEXT.
