Dallas Boxing Examiner Matt “Housecat” Stolow is going out on a limb. The veteran boxing agent and scribe may be sawing off that limb and heading for a bruising freefall come Nov. 12 but he is picking Mexican ringmaster Juan Manuel Marquez to upset Manny Pacquiao in their hyped up “Chapter III” title bout. “I haven’t worked this out totally in my head,” Stolow said Monday. “But I have had a clear, clean vision of Juan Ma getting his hand raised. Some will be shocked, some will be appalled but Marquez is going to give Manny fits like he did the first 24 rounds they fought.”
Make no mistake, punters, this is the very one and the same Stolow who boldly predicted the shocking heavyweight title upset of April, 2001, when Hasim Rahman scored a one punch KO over Lennox Lewis in South Africa.
Stolow is nothing if not a good salesman. For some years, he peddled pay per view TV boxing events to what are laughingly known in Texas as Gentlemen’s Clubs. “The ladies went topless but so what, the boxers do the same thing,” Stolow said. “Somehow, boxing and those clubs sort of go together. Unfortunately, in recent times, they’re buying more MMA events than they do boxing.” Stolow may need a checkup from the neckup but he said he will not change his upset forecast. “I am a big Manny supporter, having been to the Wild Card and having dined with him at the Thai restaurant hard by Freddie Roach’s gymnasium. I just smell an upset in the making.”
