Will Mayweather’s O go?

Who you ask is Juan Manuel Marquez. Only Floyd Mayweather’s next opponent.
And who pray tell is Floyd Mayweather? Only the boxer who retired last June as pound-for-pound the best fighter on the planet.

Mayweather and Marquez will meet September 19 in Las Vegas in a welterweight non-title bout.

It will be Mayweather’s first fight since he defeated Ricky Hatton in December of 2007.
Marquez will move up two weight classes from lightweight to fight Mayweather for one thing only – the purse.
“I’m still the biggest draw in boxing,” boasts Mayweather.
That statement, no idle boast, is true in and out of the ring.
Last year Mayweather, according to reports, raked in some eight million dollars without even entering the ring.

As if to show that there is life after boxing (or while resting from boxing) Mayweather has appeared on the television series”Dancing with the Stars” and also on Wrestle mania where he came up against Big Show.

But all those excursions out of the ring showed was how much Mayweather missed being inside it.
“I guess I just missed boxing,” he said after announcing he was coming out of retirement.
Mayweather is unbeaten in 39 fights (25 knockouts) and the risk is that the more he fights the more he is likely to find that someone somewhere is waiting to hand him that first defeat.
Is Marquez that someone? Only time will tell. He has stopped 37 of his opponents but has only fought twice as a lightweight.
Mayweather himself is cognisant of how little pressure there is on his opponents.

“When you go out there with an undefeated record, there is no pressure on these fighters because they have nothing to lose,” he said.
The fight was originally scheduled for July 18 but was rescheduled after Mayweather suffered a rib injury during training.
Mayweather has been champion in five divisions and his biggest wins have been over Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya whose Golden Boy Promotions organization will be promoting the Mayweather/Marque fight.

Should Mayweather get past Marquez a possible match up against Manny Pacquiao looms. Indeed there are some who feel that the Marquez fight is nothing more than a tune up ahead of a showdown with Pacquiao.

Whether Mayweather/ Marquez could result in a boxing classic likely to be voted “Fight of the Year” remains to be seen.
Certainly Mayweather’s decision to come out of retirement has sparked huge interest in boxing and the betting money is certainly on Mayweather.
Mayweather will definitely have the advantage in size and experience. He’s also as savvy a boxer as there is in the fight game.
Juan Manuel Marquez is pound-for-pound one of the best. The problem is that Mayweather is not one of the best, he is the best.

Source: stabroeknews.com