MCGUIGAN Juan always Pac-ked a huge punch

I AM compelled to return to obit mode this week, to mark the retirement of one of my favourite fighters.

A month before his 44th birthday, the great Juan Manuel Marquez accepted his body could take no more, and finally called it a day after 64 bouts.

They talk about Vicente Zaldivar, Carlos Zarate, Ruben Olivares, Salvador Sanchez, Julio Cesar Chavez, Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales, but Marquez is right up there with them as one of the greatest Mexican fighters of all time.

He went on to become a four-weight world champion, after losing his first fight on a DQ at 19 years of age. A lesson for any young fighter.

I recently watched a clip of him knocking out a guy with a full face-guard in training. He had that sort of accuracy and power, a consequence of almost perfect technique.

He acquired that courtesy of legendary trainer Nacho Beristain, who had a cluster of world champions in his time, including Oscar de la Hoya and Chavez.

The most emphatic demonstration of his concussive punching came five years ago when he floored Manny Pacquiao to bring to an end their brilliant four fights in eight years sequence (above, the pair in their third bout, from November 2011).

It was a sickening blow. He just waited for Pac, who would keep coming with that jerky movement, then just let go. You could see it was “lights out”, before he hit the canvas.

His technical range, his defence, the length of his shots, the way he created space for himself, made him one of the most exciting fighters to watch. He beat Pac only once in four, but could have won any one of them.

If you look at guys at the highest level, it is the fighters that can keep their form when fatigue sets in against opponents equally matched that stand apart.

All Marquez had to do was move his gloves up two inches and he switched instantly from being an offensive fighter to defensive. He had great feet to get him in and out and, because he wanted to knock people out, he was always in that wheelhouse, always in punching range.

In that space, if you drop your hands only a fraction, you are vulnerable to the counter. But, because of the way he held his hands, he never presented a target, even when he was in the midst of delivering a knockout blow.

When I close my eyes, I see him always in attack mode, and he could take your head off at any time. Just a great fighter.