Pacquiao vs. Marquez: Roach joins Manny in the Philippines for training camp

By Chris Williams:Trainer Freddie Roach has joined his fighter WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao in training camp in Baguio City in the Philippines to get Manny ready for his third fight with 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez on November 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

 

This will be the first part of Pacquiao’s training camp with the second part ending up in Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles, California.

Pacquiao struggled to what many boxing fans saw as a gift 12 round draw in 2004 and then was given a 12 round split decision win in their rematch in 2008, in another fight that many boxing fans thought that Marquez should have won. However, the judges that worked those two fights saw it differently and came up with decisions that they felt were the right ones at the time. I saw both fights and had Marquez winning them both, but that’s how it goes sometime.

 

“This fight will put an end to all the questions,” Pacquiao said to the Manila Bulletin. Maybe so or maybe not. We’ll have to wait and see. We’re talking about a really popular boxer in Pacquiao facing a guy that is nowhere near as popular in 38-year-old Marquez.

 

Anytime you get an imbalance like that, along with a large crowd that will likely overwhelmingly be favoring Pacquiao, it puts the less popular fighter [Marquez] in a one down position where he has to do something extra special to get a win. I think we could have another controversial win for Pacquiao with Marquez dominating most of the action but ending up losing on the judges’ scorecards.

 

There are two things that I think may keep that from happening this time, however. 1. Marquez is really old now, almost 40. It was wise for Bob Arum and Pacquiao to wait this long until fighting Marquez again, because he’s probably old to win now even if he does dominate. 2. not giving Marquez much of a catchweight will almost surely make it nearly impossible for him to win. The fight will be held at 144 lbs, which is nearly 10 pounds heavier than what Marquez has been fighting at. He’s proven that he looks terrible when he fights over 140.

 

So there it is, another advantage for Pacquiao. He’ll be the more popular guy, the younger fighter, have the crowd on his side, will be the bigger guy, and the judges will likely defer to Pacquiao if the fight is even slightly close. I think Marquez doesn’t have much of a chance in this fight with all those thing stacked against him.

 

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