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Manny Pacquio and Juan Manuel Marquez has fought twice, and they have only one point in-between them with both fights added together, so why was Marquez a 9 to 1 underdog in their match tonight? I looked at the obvious reasons why he would be expected to be dominated this time, and the two main reasons are his age and the fact that he struggled at the weight this fight was fought at.

AGE:

I think we all need to understand that we are in an age where we have 46 year olds beating up guys in their 20’s……..twice!! Bernard Hopkins, as well as others, shatters the age discrepancy. So we cannot use that as a huge measuring tool anymore. Don’t get me wrong, age creeps up on a lot of fighters, but age only affects the fighters that rely solely on attributes that deteriorate with age. Hand speed, foot speed, agility, reflexes, and endurance are some of the targeted areas we lose with age, but what if you’re not winning because of these?

Let’s take Roy Jones Jr…He was known for his speed, his reflexes, etc, and people were astounded that he fell from grace the way he did, but no one really knew/knows why. My first thought was that he could not recover from the fluctuation in weight he had to do to go from light heavyweight to heavyweight and then back down to light heavyweight. The change did speed up his demise, but it was inevitable for him to reach that point of weakness. Roy was pure athleticism and he lacked any real skill set. To put it simple, Roy did what he wanted to do because he was fast enough to get away with it. He did not possess the fundamental skills that would help him when he lost his attributes to old age.

Juan Manuel Marquez has never been known for dominating speed, an astounding punch output, or Lebron James like athleticism, so his 38 year old body can still do what it has been doing for years. He is one of the smartest technical fighters out there and he uses his opponent’s aggression against them. He doesn’t use speed, he uses timing, he doesn’t try and out punch his opponent, he simply throws accurate punches, which means he can save energy because he can hit you as much, or more than you hit him, but he will not have to throw as many punches to do it.

Age was not a factor with Marquez, because with old age does not decrease his intelligence in the ring, it enhances it.

Weight Class:

Marquez rose up to Welterweight to fight Manny, and many said that the last time he fought at that weight, he looked terrible. They say that he does not look good with that weight on him and that also gives Manny Pacquio an advantage.

Marquez has only fought at this weight class one time and it was against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Marquez did not look bad at Welterweight, he looked bad against Floyd! Anytime Floyd beats someone there will be people that will try and take away from his victory, and this time they decided to say that Marquez was out of his element, but as we see tonight, that was not the case. A lot of people counted Marquez out of this fight, but not rightfully so, and I will use my analysis of this fight to help me look deeper into other matches that may get flooded with so called “professional disadvantages!”