Late last week, Juan Manuel Marquez went on the record, said he was robbed in his WBO welterweight title fight with Timothy Bradley, and said he wanted a rematch with “Desert Storm” and not Manny Pacquiao.
Dinamita’s preferences are understandable. After four installments of Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Manny Pacquiao, the record stands at 1-2-1 from Marquez’s point of view, but his sole victory is also the only clear and decisive win of the series. As both the most resounding and the last win in the series, it gives Marquez a solid claim for being the better man. Why would he want to reopen the Pacquiao issue when he now has unfinished business with Bradley?
What Bradley thinks of a rematch with Marquez is anyone’s guess, but he has good cause to be wary, and I’d put my money on Marquez in a rematch. In edging Marquez, Bradley put out not just his best performance in years, but one of his best period. It’s hard to see how Bradley could improve on that, so the best he could hope for in a rematch is to either match it or that Marquez suddenly gets old.
Marquez, on the other hand, has good reason to hope to do better. His performance in three return bouts with Pacquiao proves he can improve and adjust to an opponent. Bradley played stick-and-move, and Marquez’s hard-driving, counter-punching approach isn’t the best match for that kind of game plan. However, Marquez has turned aggressive boxer-puncher before, so with a little fine tuning, it’s plausible he could do better in walking down and getting to Bradley.
The final factors are age and focus. At 40, one might think Marquez would be slipping or on the verge of slipping, but he shows no signs of it. On the other hand, Bradley hadn’t looked good in the ring for three solid years prior to the Marquez fight, and many observers were describing him as having peaked early and gone into decline. I’m thinking that Bradley’s main problem is a lack of focus, and the thing about that problem is that it can resurface in strange ways and times. Rather than Marquez getting old, it’s more likely Bradley might come back to a rematch a little fuzzy.
Whether this rematch happens or not is in Timothy Bradley’s hands now. If he weighs the odds clearly and objectively, he won’t like his chances in a rematch. I know I don’t.
While Marquez would prefer to get his revenge against Bradley, Bradley may prefer to risk his record in a more lucrative rematch against Pacquiao, should Pacquiao get past Brandon Rios. That would leave Marquez as the lone man out, as has happened to him so frequently throughout much of his career.
