By Lem Satterfield
WBO/WBA lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (50-5-1, 37 KOs) has a mountain of options in his future - if he beats Juan Diaz in their rematch on July 31 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Two of those options, WBO interim lightweight champion Michael Katsidis (27-2, 22 KOs), and WBA junior welterweight king Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KOs), will be sitting at ringside.
The WBO has ordered the Marquez-Diaz winner to fight Katsidis, the mandatory challenger. If the winner walks away from Katsidis, the WBO will likely strip the fighter of the title.
If he doesn't make his mandatory defense, Marquez will likely go for history by moving up in weight to challenge Khan on December 11 in either England or America. A win over Khan would give Marquez the recognition of being the first Mexican boxer to win four major titles in four weight divisions.
Putting Khan and Katsidis to the side; the one fight Marquez is dreaming about, and the fight he probably won't get in the near future - is a trilogy showdown with WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao. Marquez has battled Pacquiao to a draw, and, lost to on a disputed, split-decision, respectively, in May of 2004, and, March of 2008.
"[Top Rank CEO] Bob Arum and Pacquiao are scared of me. Pacquiao and Bob Arum know who won the fights. Otherwise, why don't he fight me? He doesn't want it. I badly want the fight with Pacquiao, but he doesn't want it. He doesn't want to fight with me again. That's because everybody watching the two fights with Manny knows that I won," Marquez said.
"The first fight, they called it a draw. In the second fight, it was a split-decision. I think that I won the two fights," said Marquez. "I don't know what happened with the judges with the second fight and the split-decision. Everybody watched, and everybody saw that I won the fight."
Lem Satterfield is the boxing editor at AOL FanHouse and the news editor at BoxingScene.com. To read more from Lem Satterfield, go to AOL FanHouse by Clicking Here.
