By James Blears

Unbowed, apart from the ones he took while receiving his WBC Super Bantamweight belt from president Jose Sulaiman, Rafael Marquez, is now focusing on his big Brother’s upcoming MGM Grand clash with Marco Antonio Barrera on March 17th.

Sporting some small cuts around the mouth, and a sore right hand, at the ceremony in Mexico City, Rafael Marquez is in appreciably better shape than valiant Israel Vazquez who’s going to take a while, and probably an operation to recover from a badly broken nose, which forced the TKO stoppage after seven savage yet scintillating rounds.

Rafael got decked in round three for the first time in his career, by a wicked combination rounded off with a thudding left hook from Israel. He concedes: “I got up very quickly, but then I was able to compose myself, and my condition helped me a lot. Nevertheless I went back to my corner at the end of the round a bit cross.”

Rafael says this was the second hardest fight of his career. He suggests the hardest was winning his IBF Bantamweight belt against Tim Austin on February 15th 2003. 

Jose Sulaiman says that Rafael will probably have a mandatory defense, with the official challenger be decided in May.  And Israel will have time to recoup and regroup,  for the much anticipated re-match which has yet to be signed.

However, Rafael has assured Israel that they will fight again. He insisted: “We talked about a re-match before this fight, and we WILL keep our word.”

The spotlight is now switching to older brother Juan Manuel, who’s training and aiming to relieve Marco Antonio Barrera of his WBC Super Featherweight crown.
 
The two, who are both Golden Boy fighters possess a veritable wealth of ring experience. They’ve  fought a combined seven hundred and seventy seven rounds in their careers.

While Marco has had 24 world title fights with a record of 20-4-0, Juan Manuel’s tally is nine with a record of 7-2-0.

Juan Manuel and Rafael’s trainer Ignacio “Nacho” Beristain said: “Technically Juan and Marco are different, but almost at the same level. Juan is just a little bit quicker.

“We’ve worked on the technical and tactical aspects, and we have various options. But it’s going to take up to the ultimate gram of energy and savvy and technical ability to come out of it with Juan’s hand raised high.”