For one, victory demands attention from the Hall of Fame. For the other, legend status in his proud boxing nation will be hammered home.
While not boxing’s most bankable names, Juan Manuel Marquez’s challenge for Timothy Bradley’s WBO welterweight title on Saturday is shaping up as one of the year’s most enticing bouts.
Both fighters turned down rematches with Manny Pacquiao after each handing the eight-division world champion a defeat in 2012 to take this bout at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
Neither has bothered with the trash talk usually reserved for such occasions, preferring mutual respect and a vow to let their fists say their piece.
Much has been made of Mexico legend Marquez’s age – he fought for his first world title in 1999 – but the 40-year-old insists ‘I feel like a young fighter with a wire heart’.
If he can overcome 30-year-old Bradley for the WBO belt, he’ll become his nation’s first ever five-division world champion.
With no loss in his 31 professional bouts, Bradley has beaten a host of world champions including Junior Witter, Kendall Holt, Nate Campbell and Joel Casamayor and ended the unbeaten runs of Lamont Peterson, Luis Carlos Abregu and Devon Alexander.
He was cutting it fine in his last two outings though, with a controversial points decision over Pacquiao, who Marquez knocked out in the sixth round, and picking himself up off the canvas to win in a brutal clash with Siberian Ruslan Provodnikov.
Having overcome those obstacles though, Bradley’s eyeing off Hall of Fame immortality with this bout, saying: ‘I’ve got a win over Pacquiao, if I get a win over Marquez then you can’t deny me a place in the Hall of Fame.’
TALE OF THE TAPE
TIMOTHY BRADLEY
From: Cathedral City, California, US
Age: 30
Height: 5ft 6in
Reach: 69in
Fights: 31
Wins: 30
Wins by KO: 12
Losses: 0
Draws: 0
No contests: 1
JUAN MANUEL MARQUEZ
From: Mexico City, M?xico
Age: 40
Height: 5ft 7in
Reach: 67in
Fights: 62
Wins: 55
Wins by KO: 40
Losses: 6
Draws: 1
No contests: 0
At the same time, Bradley said Marquez was ‘probably the best fighter I will have ever faced in my career, by far’, putting the veteran ahead of ‘fighter of the decade’ Pacquiao.
The American will carry in the belt, but Marquez is the narrow favourite with bookies – the challenger has never been knocked out and has the power to put opponents on the deck, as Pacquiao knows.
In their final press conference on Wednesday, both fighters deferred any blows on each other to the ring.
‘Everybody knows me, I don’t like talking outside the ring,’ said Marquez. ‘I talk inside the ring, I talk with my fists on the ring.’
‘People can expect from me to know that this is a great challenge. Capturing that fifth world title in a fifth weight division is the challenge for me.’
Bradley dubbed Marquez ‘one of the best Mexican fighters of all time’.
‘You know, Juan Manuel Marquez knows how to fight,’ Bradley said. ‘He?s very smart, knows when to fight. With that being said, this will be my toughest fight.’
When a journalist echoed the sentiments of many who don’t think Bradley can knock out Marquez, he sai ‘anything is possible in boxing’.
He said: ‘Juan Manuel Marquez knocked out Pacquiao. I didn?t think that was possible, but it happened, didn?t it? Exactly. Anything is possible in boxing.’
