Marquez to Pacman: No mas
Juan Manuel Marquez has scratched his own name off the list of potential opponents for Manny Pacquiao early next year.
Bob Arum, the Top Rank chief, has mentioned a handful of names, including Amir Khan, Kell Brook, Terence Crawford, Lucas Matthyse and Marquez.
Arum said he’s giving Marquez the opportunity for a fifth fight with Pacquiao and perhaps a paycheck bigger than what he’s earned his entire 22year career.
But Marquez is not interested. No mas. No mas. “Yes, I believe they are interested, but I no longer am and that’s a fact,” Marquez told ESPN Deportes in a recent interview. Marquez has reasons to turn the offer down. Marquez is hurting. He hasn’t fought since May last year when he outpointed Mike Alvarado. In that fight, he said he hurt his right knee.
“I have pain right now. So, I don’t know. Maybe I can retire or fight again. I don’t know,” Marquez told Pinoy scribes just days before Pacquiao faced Floyd Mayweather last May.
“I do rehabilitation but even my doctors don’t know when I can fight again,” he said.
Another factor is the fact that Marquez may be too old to fight.
Last Aug. 23, the four-division world champion turned 42, and by the time Pacquiao returns to action in the US sometime before April next year he’d grown much older.
Marquez, on paper, was guaranteed no less than $3 million for his fourth fight with Pacquiao, the most decisive one in their classic rivalry.
A fifth fight could guarantee Marquez twice, thrice or even four times as much.
But he’s no longer after the money. What the Mexican counterpuncher wants is for the image of his horrific knockout win over Pacquiao in 2012 to last in everybody’s mind.
Meanwhile, Pacquiao better impress in his comeback fight, or else he’ll be told by no less than his longtime trainer Freddie Roach to call it quits.
In a report by boxingscene.com Roach said he won’t hesitate to be blunt and tell Pacquiao himself if he no longer has what it takes to compete at the top level.
The bespectacled trainer already saw signs of Pacquiao’s decline in the Filipino icon’s bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May, a fight he lost via unanimous decision.
“I didn’t like how Manny looked in his last fight. I know there was an injury and so forth, but I think he could have done better in that fight,” Roach explained.
Arum recently said Pacquiao will return in February or March next year, as long as the fighting congressman is fully recovered from the shoulder injury he sustained while training for Mayweather.