When Juan Manuel Marquez steps into the ring this Saturday night against Orlando Salido before the heavily anticipated match-up between Bernard Hopkins and Oscar De La Hoya at the MGM Grand, he’ll try to avoid what football coaches and gamblers dub ‘the stale sandwich’.
No, it’s not something from the deli that’s three days old, but it is what’s facing the IBF/WBA featherweight king, who takes on a relatively unknown fighter after his fierce draw with Manny Pacquiao in May and who perhaps will fight him in a rematch in early 2005.
It happens in football all the time, as a team will play a traditional rival one week and then a few weeks later face another tough conference foe, but in between they play a directional school who supports their athletic budget by being the homecoming opponent for one school after another.
Oftentimes, these teams, after an inspired effort the first week, will then have an emotional letdown in the middle game and play unfocused before ratcheting things back up the next week.
Just look at De La Hoya, who nearly got caught with his pants down in looking ahead to Hopkins in June, when he was nearly upended by the previously anonymous Felix Sturm.
In Salido, Marquez faces a fighter who has a mediocre record (20-8-1), but beneath the surface is a dangerous fighter with heavy hands. Salido is currently on an eight fight winning streak and has wins against Lamont Pearson and Reggie Tuur to his credit, including a questionable draw against Alejandro Gonzalez.
Marquez admits he’d rather be facing the ‘Pac Man’ again.
“I would have liked to have had that fight so we could have found out a real result from the draw we had the last time,” he said through Top Rank publicist Ricardo Jimenez. “But I’m facing a good guy; it’s a good fight for me and I’m sure the rematch will come.”
Bob Arum says that the reason why his fighter is facing Salido is twofold: one, he’s the mandatory contender for the IBF and secondly, there are no remaining dates for 2004 on HBO. But the rematch will most likely take place the next calendar year.
“That’s what we’re hoping,” says the veteran promoter. “I talked to Murad ( Muhammad) on the telephone yesterday (Monday) and we’re hoping to arrange that for January or February.”
Perhaps both Marquez and Pacquiao need a break from each other after the hellacious 12 rounds they put each other through a few months ago. It’s one of the strong candidates for ‘Fight of the Year’, a fight that Marquez insists he won.
“I think I won the fight without a doubt,” said Marquez, who was floored three times in the opening round. “The first round, if I had to point to anything, I was just overconfident. I thought I knew what I had in front of me. It was a learning lesson. From now on, I’m ready for round one.”
Marquez, a crafty counter-puncher, actually started out strong in the opening minute, landing several sharp punches in an uncustomary role as the aggressor. But suddenly, bolts of lightning would have him on the canvas, again and again. Perhaps he got off to too quick of a start.
“Without a doubt,” he agreed. “The way I was landing my shots so easily, I thought, ‘this is going to be easier than I thought.'”
And it’s those multiple trips to the canvas that could serve him well this weekend.
“After that lesson I learned against Pacquiao, I’m not underestimating anyone. I’m coming in there to give my best,” adding that in addition to not looking ahead, that,” I think I even prepared better than I did for Pacquiao. I had never been knocked down, much less three times in one round. That makes you think; it gets you ready for the next fight.”
The battle with Pacquiao was the kind of fight where boxers can leave a piece of themselves in that ring, coming out of it diminished, never to be the same. But Marquez insists that with him, that’s not the case.
“After 15 days I was ready to go,” he claims. “I felt really good. It was taxing at the time, but after that I felt really good. It didn’t take that long to recover.”
It’s been a long time since a fighter has benefited from a fight where he wasn’t even the winner like Marquez has.
“It was the most courageous performance I’ve seen in a long while and people took notice of Marquez for the first time,” said Arum, who also promotes his brother, Rafael, the current IBF bantamweight champion. “As being not only a terrific featherweight but a real good competitor. I mean how many fighters could come back from three knockdowns?”
Marquez took a big step in becoming a marquee name.
“I think a lot of people that saw the fight saw me winning the fight and I think a lot of people were happy to see the fight,” he states. “I talked to a lot of people, everyone had a lot of fun with it and I think it was a great fight. It’s been great for my career, and not only that, I’m sure we’ll get a chance to break that tie.”
He will, if he doesn’t digest a stale sandwich.
PAY PER VIEW
De La Hoya-Hopkins is the marquee event of 2004 and it will be interesting to see just how well this event does on pay-per-view. Arum likes the early readings.
” The fight is tracking north of De La Hoya-Trinidad, which is 1.4 million, and how far north? I don’t know, but reasonably far north and our goal is two million, which we’ll never reach. But I think without any question it’ll go past 1.5 million.”
Here are Oscar’s five best pay-per-view outings, according to HBO Pay Per View.
1- Trinidad – 1.4 million buys ($71.4 million in revenue)
2- Mosley II – 950,000 buys ($48.4 million)
3- Vargas – 935,000 buys ($47.8 million)
4- Whitaker – 720,000 ($28.8 million)
5- Mosley I – 590,000 ($29.5 million).
