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Last night I was thinking about something (which is beyond the point of this post and thus not worth specifying) that led me to google the words "Batman’s superpowers." Upon seeing the results, I was reminded of a fact I already knew: Batman has no superpowers. He has inherited wealth but other than that he is a self-made superhero, just a regular dude who relies on his intelligence and resources to fight crime in Gotham.
I immediately drew a connection between Batman and Juan Manuel Marquez. He possesses none of the natural advantages of some of his world class contemporaries. He doesn’t have great speed, reflexes, or power. He isn’t supernaturally tall or long. He isn’t particularly strong. He doesn’t have an awesome money punch. And yet still he has risen to the top of the sport, a man universally considered one of the top-3 pound-for-pound fighters in the game.
Manny Pacquiao has three gifts from the heavens: mesmerizing speed, prodigious power (especially when he was fighting below 135 pounds, although the Hatton knockout at 140 was the most devastating single punch of his career), and a straight left hand that made him a force to be reckoned with even when he had little else to go with it. And yet, Marquez proved his equal, and some would say more than his equal, in their two fights against each other.
Like Batman, Marquez excels because he is extremely smart and has complete command of his utilities – which in his case are the tried and true techniques of the sweet science and a courageous fighting heart. Counterpunching is his modus operandi. There is no one who puts together combinations more brilliantly. Want a snapshot of his acumen? Look no further than his closing out of Juan Diaz, when he set Baby Bull up with body punches before finishing him off with an umpteenth precise uppercut. Want to see how well he can adjust amidst adversity? Just watch the first fight with Pacquiao, when he was able to salvage a draw despite getting knocked down three times in the first round. Sixty seconds after surviving an ambush that had Lampley referring to Manny as a "storm" and Merchant likening Manny to a "typhoon," Marquez was already beginning to time and dodge the Filipino’s wildly thrown left hands.
Bill Simmons once wrote that in order for Jason Kidd to compensate for not being able to shoot, the rest of his game had to be perfect. I saw similarities between that assessment of Kidd and the one I have of Marquez: he has average natural ability, but he more than makes up for it by being technically flawless.
But I think the Batman analogy works better: In his prime Kidd was blessed with great speed (no one got from one end to the other faster with the ball in their hands), and he remains very strong for his position (and he still has those stellar mitts of his). Marquez, on the other hand, is exactly like the Dark Knight: a superhero without a superpower.
Marquez will be facing another superhero, Floyd Mayweather Jr., next Saturday. He will be outgunned. He is facing not only a larger opponent but one with probably the most celebrated superpowers in the boxing comic book: Money May’s pure athleticism is off the charts. His speed and reflexes are blinding. But it’d be wise not to count Marquez out: He may not have any special capabilities, but a superhero is a superhero. Batman always manages to get it done, and Marquez usually does, too.
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