A great fight is like falling in love ? sometimes you just know.
Sometimes the chemistry just promises that a collision will lead to combustion, combining into an explosion, an exhibition of drama and action.
Those are two crucial elements. Consistent action, chemistry that leads to physics, every action leading to an equal and opposite reaction. One fighter’s flurry of punches ends and another returns fire with a combination of his own. The pattern continues, pugilistic acceleration, objects remaining in motion until an external force brings them to a stop, be it due to time running out or from gravity kicking in.
That action builds drama, a story unfolding, left hooks building to plot twists, shifts in momentum ? warriors confronted with mortality, heroes contending with adversity. Chemistry and physics are maintained by biology. Heart and guts, brains and courage.
Those two elements and those three sciences form the essence of the sweetest of the Sweet Science ? a Fight of the Year.
Sometimes you just know.
Juan Manuel Marquez is a boxer-puncher who trades with technique, though without being too tactical. He is a master at sizing up the action and adjusting midway through a fight, tweaking his strategy and changing his artillery.
Juan Diaz can be his nickname, a Baby Bull who comes out of the gate with a head of steam, head-down, keeping his opponent in his sights and getting to him with pressure. Diaz can also be his day-job, a student who looks at what he has in front of him from a distance before breaking his opponent down and bringing the fight to its conclusion.
Marquez, at 35, is no longer the unappreciated third wheel missing the attention given to his countrymen, fellow Mexican featherweights Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales. While Barrera and Morales have fallen from their lofty perches, Marquez is still riding high.
As he aged and slowed, his bouts are no longer one-sided clinics but instead consist of two-way action. Now he is unavoidable, a headliner for the past two years in the 130- and 135-pound divisions.
Diaz is a 25-year-old who has already fought nine years in the professional ranks. He held a world title at 20, though his first half-dozen defenses came against fringe contenders, quizzes to help gauge where the student was at before he was to have his first true test. But then he knocked out Acelino Freitas and Julio Diaz, two fellow belt holders, earning him wide consideration as the best lightweight around.
Then he lost. Nate Campbell took him to the woodshed, gave him a beating and left him strapless. Two fights later, he would need to beat Marquez to show that he still belonged at the top of the class.
They were two combustible fighters ? a veteran champion who wanted to hold on to the respect that had long eluded him and a younger challenger who had reached great heights but now needed to claw his way back.
Diaz started the bout with his usual activity, throwing 104 punches in the first round and 98 in the second. Marquez worked to keep pace, sending out 95 shots in the opening stanza ? more than he had ever thrown before in a round ? and 94 in the next. Marquez was landing as often as Diaz, with 63 connects to Diaz’s 61, with 42 power punches on target compared to Diaz’s 43.
But one punch meant more than the rest. A Diaz left hook midway through the second round momentarily wobbled Marquez. It seemed to show that Diaz, never a fighter with one-punch power, had an advantage over Marquez as a career lightweight.
If Diaz’s foundation was activity, then Marquez’s was accuracy. And chemistry led to physics. In rounds three, four and five, the action heated up, combustion exploding over. Diaz threw 255 punches in those nine minutes, hitting Marquez with 89, 62 of which were power shots. Leather from Marquez landed on Diaz 98 of 254 times in that same duration, with 68 of those being power punches. Those harder blows hit Diaz 48 percent of the time.
Action built drama. Marquez had a cut over his right eye from the fifth round on. Through six rounds, Marquez had already seen more power punches thrown at him than he’d ever confronted over any fight. Diaz was hitting him, but Marquez was battling back.
Marquez adjusted. His punches began to land more cleanly. He hit Diaz with 35 of 70 punches in the seventh, a 50 percent connect rate that included 20 power punches landed out of 31 thrown, an astonishing 65 percent of those shots hitting their target.
By the eighth, Diaz had a cut of his own, blood over the right eye, not the red this Baby Bull wanted to see. Marquez took advantage, hurting Diaz in the final minute of the round, just one of the 30 power punches landed out of the 56 thrown. By contrast, Diaz was a paltry eight of 35. He had little left to offer.
Diaz was an object in motion slowing down. An external force was about to bring him to a stop.
With 45 seconds left in round nine, Marquez put together a combination that culminated in an uppercut and sent Diaz to the canvas. Diaz got up, heart and guts that couldn’t contend with Marquez’s brains. Another uppercut from Marquez and Diaz was down once again, his time having run out, gravity having kicked in.
A great fight is like falling in love ? it is exciting while it lasts and impossible to forget once it is over.
Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz combined for 26 minutes and 40 seconds of action and drama, every moment matching the anatomy of a Fight of the Year, science so sweet as to leave those who experienced it head over heels.
