According to long time Trainer Nacho Beristain, his pupil, the WBC Super Featherweight Champion, Juan Manuel Marquez, 48-3-1, 35 KO’s, is ready, willing, and able to defend his title against Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao, 45-3-2, 35 KO’s, but Marquez has already been plagued to the degree of minuscule details when it comes to his championship bout against the Filipino warrior.
Marquez, who backs in early weeks of August ‘05, was stripped of his IBF Featherweight attire due to not challenging Fahprakorb Rakkiatgym, and twin promoters couldn’t drop a 50 grand minimum on the table.
He incidentally stood not to make much more than that fighting Chris John (WBA), but the real stain on his rap sheet was in turning down the original rematch with Manny Pacquiao for a $750,000 dollar offer.
Now it seems that Dinamita Marquez has acquired another set of scruples, and it’s in the refereeing department that he left in a suggestion box for his boxing alliance to know.
It becomes a little trifle between things for fighters to complain about things like sizes or the weight of gloves…granted, or even the ring and location is concerned. We can all stand that I suppose. But to make such a request like discrediting the choice of a referee to officiate your fight…well I have never seen such an escapade elevate to that level before.
Do you really believe those demands? Well, it is true. Juan Marquez has ordered his prestigious organization to rethink considering the services of Referee Joe Cortez. “Firm,” yet Juan Manuel Marquez’s shunned “fair,” the man who has refereed more bouts than him and his brother have fought put together.
He is currently in the Nevada Commissions’ hair to not allow Cortez on March 15’s biggest fight of his life. Cortez may have missed a knockdown by the closest of margins from his vantage point before, but he’s never made a bad call that I could remember.
Perhaps Marquez would rather have Laurence Cole instead? I’m a little perplexed by Marquez’s choice. His complaint dates back to the 1999 featherweight Freddie Norwood fight in which he still harbors contempt with what Nevada may still opt to appoint one of their states best.
Marquez is sore about the trip to the canvas he endured that night against Norwood, blaming Cortez.
According to what you hear from the champs’ lips, they’re capable of sinking ships. Marquez, it seems to me, has plenty to worry about besides a third arbiter, particularly a human cannonball before him.
For most of his career he’s been a featherweight. Pacquiao on the other hand has been naturally getting thicker, as well as his wallet, but the demands brought about Marquez have been disturbing.
“Everything has been going fine for my fight with Manny Pacquiao March 15th in Las Vegas.” Marquez continues, “Except for one thing. If they designate Puerto Rican referee Joe Cortez, I’m going to (flat out) reject it.”
Here’s one word to the wise, I have been skeptical before, but even in chagrins we all have to come to an accord that a champion should take care of their businesses inside that ring…and leave the other controlling factors of professionals that work their tails off to those specifically who work it.
Just my bit if you’d like.
Roy Jones JR – Felix Trinidad Wrap Up
“I can’t believe you stayed in there 12 rounds with me. We had a great fight and everyone said we were too old. — Roy Jones
Roy Jones, JR., has fought many of the best fighters in the game of boxing. The top pinnacles of Roy Jones’ career reads: Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins, Thomas Tate, James “Lights Out” Toney, Vinny Pazienza, Eric Lucas, Mike “The Body Snatcher” McCallum, Montell Griffin, Virgil “Quicksilver” Hill, Lou Del Valle, Otis Grant, Reggie Johnson, Julio Gonzalez, Clinton Woods, John Ruiz, and Antonio Tarver.
Tito Trinidad’s wasn’t shabby either with his list of defeated opponents similar to Jones’s: Maurice Blocker, Hector “Macho” Camacho, “Yory Boy” Campas, Oba Carr, Freddie Pendleton, Pernell Whitaker, Hugo Pineda, Oscar De La Hoya, Fernando Vargas, William Joppy, David Reid, and Ricardo “El Matador” Mayorga.
Tito accepted 2000 Fighter of The Year honors, including ESPN athlete some may have forgotten, and his greatest presence was in the welterweight category. It reminds me of another fighter or two who were deemed unbeatable in Sugar Ray Leonard and Sugar Ray Robinson.
Imagine the horror of the Campas fight in which he was undefeated, heavily favored, and if the referee hadn’t intervened that split second, Yory might have suffered permanent damage from the onslaught.
Carr was another fighter, who was under direct tutorage with master Kronk tactician Emanuel Steward, and Trinidad took his “O.”
With those earned hardy awards he’s been the most celebrated athlete since the late baseball hero, Carolina, Puerto Rico’s Roberto Clemente single-handedly defeated the 1971 Baltimore Orioles in game seven, and proved that their Spanish just might have been even greater then all of our boxing spin put together!
When Tito got weighed for Jones at the weigh-in, he took three tries to hit the 170 mark, two-tenths of a pound in his first couple attempts in his dark briefs.
There was no doubt that the Trinidad’s wanted Tito to be closer to the light-heavyweight category in retrospect, and the added weight was not a sacrifice for him. Tito had been at this readied weight.
Jones’s main concern wasn’t about weight…as it was for his choice of using Grant gloves. They disagreed, as fighters normally do. The Trinidads were dead set for them to use the Everlast hardware, assuming Jones knew that fact.
In an amazing turnabout, Roy voiced he didn’t care what gloves Trinidad used so long as he wore his preferred pair of thrifty mitts…at first, but then Tito’s delegation of a lawyer, accompanied Papa Trinidad came across the street of The Garden to Roy’s suite to make sure that Roy followed suit to the letter of the written contracted agreement. If this sounds petty to you, it shouldn’t.
Score one for Trinidad here for the rules of engagement. Who did Roy think he was dealing with demanding such idled incrementing detailing to anyway? There was a bit more at stake then him attempting to “KO Tito in four,” stick around just long enough for a quick interview, bite to eat, and then get on the plane back to Pensacola.
The drama would engulf that moment in history, and would return nothing back, regardless the outcome. We ached for was an answer, though seven or more years delayed.
No excuses…no claiming that the gloves weren’t appropriate, or the ring was sized up to a particular advantage any which way. These were superstars who shined in their day, and seeing them there was honoring the real testament of how warriors should be. No bigger fight could be made that produced bigger names, let alone no one put under. ?
And hadn’t Tito looked as fearsome and indomitable sometime since beating the dye off of Ricardo “El Matador” Mayorga’s weary head?
We’re going to get a freebee on HBO Mayo the 3rd, perhaps with or without Tito on a supporting card, and a September “I can’t wait to see it” as Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather rematch. That’ll break your piggy bank in a recession society, and then a farewell for a reinvigorated RJJ in December for whomsoever is the winner.
De La Hoya no doubt has not forgotten losing to Trinidad, whether it’s etched in his passed imploring methods of taking his Paisan out to eat at the island’s home restaurant, to going through extraordinary lavish settings to getting to Tito.
Trinidad stated after taking a lopsided 12 decision gone south against Jones, said, “I took off two years and eight months. I take nothing away from Roy but if I could have avoided the knockdowns, I think I would have won the fight. He was very fast and strong and threw great punches. I have no excuses. He demonstrated speed and took my body punches. Roy Jones was very fast and he fought a good fight. I think he won the fight but not by such a wide margin.”
Mellowing out his future, Trinidad commented, “I fight for my fans and the people of Puerto Rico…I will decide if I fight again or not. I will speak to my father but I will make the decision as to whether or not I will fight again.”
The fight with Jones has remarkably resuscitated life to those old throwbacks legs, and Roy’s physique looked as if it regressed like in the way it was seventeen years ago. Thirty-nine is just a number.
It proved that regardless of age, when two top athletes decide to dedicate themselves to making a showing, there are showings, and then there’re Super Showings. Jones and Trinidad did as much.
