This week Alex Ariza, the strength and conditioning coach for Manny Pacquiao, is communicating to Juan Manuel Marquez that ?muscles don?t win fights.? Obviously he is referring to the routine Marquez has been going through, which is designed to add bulk to his frame. And it would seem to also be a reference to the presence of Angel Heredia (aka Angel Hernandez), who has admitted to dealing steroids to athletes and coaching them on how to beat drug tests.
As some fighters tend to do, Marquez is bulking up in an attempt to more appropriately fight at 144 pounds, higher than he has ever been before, as he challenges for the WBO welterweight title.
But is it really ?appropriate? for him to be going ?big??
There?s always a potential problem in doing this, and I would suppose it would depend on the individual fighter as to how wise it really is. Some can handle moving up from one division to the next, while others cannot.
Pacquiao has certainly done a good job of moving from flyweight all the way to welterweight. But ? and we say this even recognizing that the custom is to move vertically rather than horizontally in boxing these days ? Marquez has not done it so well.
I say that with all due respect to the fighter, but every fighter in these lower divisions gets to the point where he has reached his limit. Marquez may have reached that when he went to 140 (142, to be precise) against Floyd Mayweather, a move that came not too long after he had gone from 130 to 135.
If you look at what Pacquiao has done as he has graduated from one division tot he next, he has not exactly stretched thing to the limit. For example, he was just 142 when he fought Oscar De La Hoya, and was at least a couple of pounds below the welterweight limit when he fought Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley. And against Antonio Margarito, he was just 144.5 pounds, even though it was a light middleweight title fight (WBC version).
