Number Juan?

You can't teach your granny or Juan Manuel Marquez to suck eggs!

The Mexican marvel, nicknamed Dinamita, has devised his own brand of rocket fuel for the upcoming battle of lightning reflexes, razor sharp wits and thudding fists against Floyd Mayweather Jr... but, oh boy, it ain't pretty!

Marquez is making Rocky Balboa look tame, because he's swallowing raw eggs by the dozen, and to wash it down, he's nipping to the loo to collect and drink his own urine!

Juan Manuel ruefully concedes the pee formula is not a pale ale vintage bouquet, but insists, without taking the mickey, it's worked a treat for the last half-dozen fights, and he swears by the vitamin content. He's also been getting some lungfuls of enriched fresh air in a hyperbaric chamber.

Marquez, who's now had almost half a year to get ready, due to Mayweather's ticklish rib injury, has been training for the fight of his life.

A trained accountant, who's accomplished at crunching numbers as well as cracking chins, he's well aware of the odds, the adverse stats and clutch of clucking critics who have sagely written him off as being too old and too lightweight to stand a chance against an undefeated five division champion.

He's already torn up that weighty script as part of his training regime.

High altitude

Most Mexican fighters who really mean business go training at the bleak Otomi High altitude training centre in the craggy mountains broodingly perched over Toluca. But to get into to peak condition Marquez has gone to the peak district above them, another thousand metres above three thousand five hundred metres above sea level Mexico City. He's run up to and passed by extinct volcanoes at the rarefied higher level of Nevado De Toluca.

Back in the unremitting head-swimming oven like heat of the Romanza gym, in the gritty barrio of Iztacalco, Marquez takes time out to chat before a 90-minute training session. It's a workshop and sweatshop which has turned out burnished anvil-fisted fighters the likes of his hard hitting brother Rafael, the peerless and undefeated Ricardo 'Finito' Lopez, Daniel Zaragoza and Gilberto Roman.

The Marquez of today is no longer a svelte natural featherweight. He's a powerful 144lbs, which is the catchweight limit the bout will be fought at. He's sporting forearms, biceps and shoulders which would be the envy of Popeye, and they pack hellish wallops as protectively-padded trainers and the welted midriffs of exposed sparring partners bear witness to.

However, he is under no illusions about the magnitude of the test ahead. He stressed: "This is the most important fight of my career. It's against the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, who has a superb defense, is very astute and is undefeated.

"I've been active and busy fighting. I've also had almost five months to get ready for this fight, appropriately tempering the level of my training because of the postponement, but Floyd's spent more than a year and a half out of the ring.

"That said, I know Floyd Mayweather is always in superb condition, and I'm ready for the very best Floyd there is.

"There's no specific set strategy. Rather I'll tailor what I do, round by round to overcome his style. I'm going to use, speed, intelligence, savvy, counter punching and every bit of experience I've accumulated during my career to defeat him. I have to employ all of these things to open up routes of opportunity because he's a very complete boxer.

"It's extremely important to grasp this and to have an appreciation of the task ahead in order to win. I'm also going to pressure him, but in an intelligent way. I've been working hard on my speed, which is obviously an important factor. Not a punch will be wasted."

Copy Castillo
Many boxing doyens are convinced that compatriot Jose Luis Castillo did more than enough to defeat Mayweather in the first fight they had. Castillo is an out-and-out attacking fighter, while the Marquez style is counter-punching and designed for greater ring longevity.

Unabashed, his wily manager Ignacio "Nacho" Beristain has been closely studying it, to see if any snippet or nugget can be gleaned from the way Castillo successfully harassed Floyd out of his comfort zone and into a telephone booth, a private corner of hell.

At 36 years old, and with almost as many accumulated KO's to his credit as Mayweather has had fights, Juan Manuel is smart enough to know that his multi-talented opponent could never be considered a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

But he is also honest enough to admit he's still hankering after a third showdown with Manny Pacquiao, who's slated to fight Miguel Cotto next.

He explained it by saying: "My mindset is on September 19, but I also know the fans want me to take on Manny Pacquiao for a third time. In my heart I also want this. I'm using it as an extra motivating factor right now."

And silver tongued Golden Boy Productions owner Oscar De La Hoya, who recently dropped in on Juan, has said when he wins this fight: "He'll be calling the shots."

While sparring against Marquez, welterweight Abraham Alejandro Barrera from Monterrey - who has KO'd all 13 of his opponents - tries to arch one shoulder and then roll both of them to mimic Floyd's intricate defensive techniques.

His reward is a hard-angled right hook into the mid section of his ribs and a thundering straight left on to the side of his battered head guard.

Imitation almost provided him with the sincerest form of flattening.

However, Juan Manuel Marquez is under no illusions that it'll be as easy when he faces Floyd Mayweather Jr in the MGM Grand, Las Vegas. His only message to Mayweather is a brief and stark: "I'm ready and I'm prepared."

Source: skysports.com