TOUGH TIME TO ASK FOR PPV MONEY?
San Francisco, CA– The Saturday night rematch between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz is good for almost everybody involved. The entity that the fight is not good for is you fans! Think about it, the two fighters get to pocket good six figure purses, the promoters involved make money, but in order for this to happen, you American boxing fans are being asked to shell out $50 bucks in the midst of the worst economy since the Depression of the 1930s.
ARE BOTH GUYS A LIL’ SHY OF SUPERSTAR?
Even though HBO advertised well for what is an encore bout between the willing, pushing Marquez-Diaz II as a PPV package just doesn’t seem to register with me. But as we all know Mexicans residing in the United States hold the single biggest piece of the boxing PPV pie, and Marquez (50-5-1, 37 KOs) is a Mexican National while Diaz (35-3-1, 17 KOs) is Mexican-American. This is what the promoters are banking on
. If they sell 200,000 homes at $50 bucks, the promoters take $5 million and HBO PPV gets $5 million (a 50-50 split is the way it is done)
FIRST FIGHT WAS NEAR CLASSIC!
In case you missed their first encounter, Marquez, 34 and Diaz soon to be 27, the two engaged a war of the willing in February 2009. Since then, Marquez is 0-1 and Diaz is a shaky .500 going 1-1 with Paul Malignaggi. Their first fight raised such a stink that they went a second time and Paulie prevailed.
DIAZ NEEDS A WIN BADLY
One could make a case that Diaz, now 26, has lost five straight fights. If you throw out the UD 12 (see gift) in the first Paulie fight, realize that his fight with Michael Katsides was a split decision at home in Houston, TX, conceivably Diaz could have lost five straight going back to a UD 12 to Nate Campbell in March 2008. Although he has a decade in youth, unless Marquez goes geriatric, Diaz doesn’t look good here.
MARQUEZ’ HBO DEBUT “STUNK”
When I first saw Juan Manuel Marquez in 1999, it was against Freddie Norwood. It was, and I’m sure HBO’s Larry Merchant will back me up on this, one of the most boring matches the network has ever shown. And while I saw little, Prince Naseem Hamed, the then WBO 126 lb. titleholder, he saw more than I as he obviously avoided JMM to the point of what would have been embarrassment, if Hamed hadn’t been making $20 million (Arab TV & HBO) a fight while dodging JMM.
FIGHT WITH MAYWEATHER SHOWED US WHAT?
That September 2009 loss to Floyd Mayweather was JMM’s last outing. A loser via near shutout, Marquez was no match for Mayweather’s speed and guile. Interesting is that Marquez was a near equal after 12 rounds twice with Manny Pacquiao, and he couldn’t get close enough to Mayweather to do anything offensively. Even though Marquez is getting grayer by the day, Pacquiao would seemingly rather fight anyone other than JMM. Seeing the controversy in their fights, and that I have never heard the JMM name come out of his mouth since their second post fight press conference, Manny obviously wants no part of this fading Mexican legend.
MARQUEZ WINS AND FIGHTS “THE GHOST” IF…
Should Robert Guerrero do a number on Joel Casamayor in the semi-main event Saturday and Marquez wins, it’ll be “The Ghost” and JMM before the year is out. Tomorrow we preview Guerrero-Casamayor.
Pedro Fernandez