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By Kieran Mulvaney - I actually feel a little sorry for Juan Manuel Marquez.
All he did was dominate a solid contender over twelve rounds a little over a week ago—just a few months after taking a clear decision over Marco Antonio Barrera—and nobody’s talking about him.
But then, that’s what happens when you face Rocky Juarez on the same night Joe Calzaghe puts on a clinic against Mikkel Kessler and a week before Miguel Cotto gets past Shane Mosley in one of the most anticipated fights of the year.
Juan Manuel has long been a top ten pound-for-pound entrant, although I personally rated him as the second best of the Marquez brothers until Rafael was upended by Israel Vasquez in their scintillating super featherweight rematch in August. Combine that with the demise of Barrera and Erik Morales and the defeat of Winky Wright, and as much by attrition as anything, by October he had wound up at number three on my list, behind only Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Mayweather and Pacquiao remain atop that list; barring a catastrophic implosion by Floyd against Ricky Hatton on December 8, they’ll close out the year in first and second place, respectively.
Despite dominating Juarez, however, Marquez dropped to number four on the evening of November 3, swapping places with Calzaghe.
I’m one of those American boxing writers (and yes, I am an American boxing writer, notwithstanding my having been born about sixty miles from, as witty publicist Fred Sternburg dubbed him, The Southpaw Joe C. Wales) who was very slow to clamber aboard the Calzaghe bandwagon. I picked Jeff Lacy to beat him (which, in hindsight, was not an especially bright prediction), and I picked Kessler to beat him. I just could not abide Calzaghe’s style of fighting, his slapping flurries, his lack of fundamentals. [details]
All he did was dominate a solid contender over twelve rounds a little over a week ago—just a few months after taking a clear decision over Marco Antonio Barrera—and nobody’s talking about him.
But then, that’s what happens when you face Rocky Juarez on the same night Joe Calzaghe puts on a clinic against Mikkel Kessler and a week before Miguel Cotto gets past Shane Mosley in one of the most anticipated fights of the year.
Juan Manuel has long been a top ten pound-for-pound entrant, although I personally rated him as the second best of the Marquez brothers until Rafael was upended by Israel Vasquez in their scintillating super featherweight rematch in August. Combine that with the demise of Barrera and Erik Morales and the defeat of Winky Wright, and as much by attrition as anything, by October he had wound up at number three on my list, behind only Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Mayweather and Pacquiao remain atop that list; barring a catastrophic implosion by Floyd against Ricky Hatton on December 8, they’ll close out the year in first and second place, respectively.
Despite dominating Juarez, however, Marquez dropped to number four on the evening of November 3, swapping places with Calzaghe.
I’m one of those American boxing writers (and yes, I am an American boxing writer, notwithstanding my having been born about sixty miles from, as witty publicist Fred Sternburg dubbed him, The Southpaw Joe C. Wales) who was very slow to clamber aboard the Calzaghe bandwagon. I picked Jeff Lacy to beat him (which, in hindsight, was not an especially bright prediction), and I picked Kessler to beat him. I just could not abide Calzaghe’s style of fighting, his slapping flurries, his lack of fundamentals. [details]
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