by Ronnie Nathanielsz

Mexican legend Juan Manuel Marquez who emerged a hero in his home country after becoming the first Mexican to beat eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao by scoring a devastating 6th round knockout last Saturday will be at special ringside at the WBO super bantamweight title defense of Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire against Mexican warrior Jorge “Travieso” Arce.

While some Filipinos expressed concern and suspicion over  the involvement of Angel Heredia Hernandez as the strength and conditioning coach of Marquez as well as Arce, with Freddie Roach having earlier claimed Marquez looked like he was on performance enhancing drugs, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said Heredia is now “the Philippine assassin.”

Heredia was involved in the use of illegal drugs by American Olympic gold medalist and sprinter Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, giving rise to the concerns.

The Top Rank promoter who is staging the title fight at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas on Saturday, in a fight card to be telecast over ABS-CBN Channel 2 said “Marquez is coming to the fight and we are going to have a special tribute for him from the Mexican fans.”

Arum said ticket sales are going well and he expects another great fight.

Heredia, in an exclusive interview with BoxingScene.com/Manila Standard said Arce was supposed to train with Marquez and his trainer “Nacho” Beristain and himself but was there “only for two and a half weeks and he had to go back home because obviously the time was not enough for “Nacho and myself to train in Mexico City. So he decided it was best to go and train at his hometown where the gym was close by.”

He described Donaire as “very quick, very technical and its going to be a good fight. I would say that Arce is another warrior, good guy but of course the different styles play a very important role in this fight.”

Heredia said that if Arce “does things right he’s going to give Donaire some problems. Nonito is the guy who is very fast . Its kind of hard to predict what will happen.”

He said that “ some people are favoring Nonito but in boxing anything can happen