Before continuing let me make one statement very clear.
I love conspiracies.
As a kid I would go to the Hawthorne Library and read book after book detailing cover-ups and conspiracies. From the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to theories about what really happened on 9/11, reading the alternative possibilities to the causes of historical events has always been a source of entertainment and fascination for me.
Today Golden Boy Promotions announced a September 15 HBO pay per view card featuring Juan Manuel Marquez against Ricardo ?Rocky? Juarez has been cancelled. The reasoning for the termination?
Quoting a Golden Boy Press release, ?Marquez, who was scheduled to fight Rocky Juarez in the evening?s main event, suffered a cut on his right hand which developed an infection.?
That is the official line coming from Oscar De La Hoya?s promotion.
Being the owner of a cynical mind, I wonder aloud if Marquez is truly hurt? For a fighter to cut his hand and then develop an infection would be rather odd. Having been around a training camp or two during my stint as a boxing ?writer?, I can testify to the fact that a world class fighter?s health is closely protected in preparation for a bout.
If you sneeze at the gym of a boxer in training for a huge fight, be prepared get escorted off the premises and fast. No trainer will risk the health of his fighter as they prepare for 12 rounds of exhaustion. For a fighter to get a cut and have it develop into an infection, which is a highly improbable situation for an individual who receiving top notch medical treatment sounds fishy to me.
Yet like any good conspiracy theorist, I must ask myself, who would gain from NOT having this fight?
Very simple answer, Juan Manuel Marquez and Golden Boy Promotions.
Marquez vs. Juarez was a borderline pay per view, no doubt about it. Tickets were not selling like hot cakes to the MGM Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the fight was to be held, and the pay per view projections were not strong. Yet in an era where site fees make almost any Las Vegas pay per view profitable, a potential monetary loss is unlikely and not a reasonable cause for my proposed conspiracy.
Instead, maybe Golden Boy and Marquez were at future profits being risked. While Marquez was favored to defeat Juarez, no fight is a sure victory in boxing. If Juarez were to have defeated Marquez, he would have possibly derailed one of the biggest fights in boxing: Marquez vs. Manny Pacquiao II. Golden Boy could have made a nice chunk of change off of Marquez vs. Juarez, but the financial upside of Marquez vs. Pacquiao is much, much greater.
Marquez might have suffered an injury, but maybe he and Golden Boy are making more out of it than is really there. Nobody was dying to see Juarez in against Marquez, so why not fudge the situation a little?
Golden Boy?s press release quoted main honcho Oscar De La Hoya as saying, ?We are having him come to Los Angeles this weekend for further evaluation and treatment by a specialist.?
Nice touch Oscar, but I am sure the specialist will not be a neutral third party physician, thus adding more fuel to my conspiracy. Once again, I have no facts or evidence to prove this, but does it not make sense?
All I need now is for Pacquiao to pull out of his October 6 bout against Marco Antonio Barrera with a case of the flu and my conspiracy will have a full set of legs.
