Manny Pacquiao: How Pacquiao Left Marquez for Money and Fame in 2008
Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao were equals just three and a half years ago.
In March of 2008, both men engaged in a battle to settle the score over a draw they had four years prior. Pacquiao won by split decision. The rematch was appropriately titled "Unfinished Business."
That means that of the three official judges who scored the battle, one thought Marquez had won. Of the two that scored the fight for Pacquiao, one gave the fight to Pacquiao by one point with Marquez's third-round knockdown being the deciding factor.
While Marquez likely felt regret at not winning the fight because he couldn't stay on his feet during the third round, he also felt that he deserved a rematch for almost dethroning Pacquiao a second time.
Pacquiao, unfortunately for Marquez, had different plans according to NY Daily. "I don't think so," Pacquiao said. "This business is over."
And with that declaration, Pacquiao embarked on a journey to stardom no one would have predicted at the beginning of 2008, especially not Marquez.
Being Lightweight
1 of 5Juan Manuel Marquez moved up to the lightweight division in September 2008 in a move to imitate Pacquiao's move up from super featherweight to lightweight in June of that year.
Marquez would face Joel Casamayor for a world title at lightweight as if to tell Pacquiao that he couldn't hide just by moving up one weight division.
Marquez was right. He knocked out Casamayor in Round 11, but Pacquiao had already left that weight division a month before the fight started.
Welterweight? De La Hoya?
2 of 5Shock rang out in August of 2008 as the long-rumored De La Hoya-Pacquiao negotiations would finally bear the fruit of an official fight to be held that December.
Oscar De La Hoya would come down from middleweight (160 lbs) and junior middleweight (154 lbs) to face Pacquiao at welterweight (147 lbs).
Pacquiao would meanwhile come up after only just recently fighting once at lightweight (135 lbs). Not many expected the fight to yield a true welterweight career for Pacquiao.
Most expected the move to be just for this fight, and maybe if Pacquiao could squirt out a win, a big-money fight with Ricky Hatton at junior welterweight (140 lbs).
What would come next would shock even Pacquiao's biggest supporters.
Oscar De La Hoya: Why Pacquiao?
3 of 5Manny Pacquiao had been No. 2 pound-for-pound for a long time.
One man repeatedly stayed in his way: Floyd Mayweather.
Then Mayweather retired after a lucrative 2007 that included a split-decision victory over De La Hoya.
Pacquiao moved up to pound-for-pound No. 1 on most analysts' lists.
Though Pacquiao was considered the smaller man, his violent style and speed would more than make up for it.
De La Hoya just couldn't account for how much they would make up for it.
Many feared that Pacquiao would be stopped in the mid-rounds, but instead it was De La Hoya's corner that quit after Round 8.
De La Hoya was barraged and beaten to a pulp like no other time in his career.
Even his lone knockout loss to Bernard Hopkins came as a result of a body shot delivered by the bigger man. De La Hoya had never sustained so much raised skin and purple-tinted bruises.
With this purple and blue masterpiece that was De La Hoya's post-fight face, Pacquiao became legend and effectively left Marquez behind.
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Post-2008 to Present
4 of 5Pacquiao made millions continuing to beat and drill giants such as Antonio Margarito at junior middleweight (154 lbs) and Shane Mosley at welterweight.
Juan Manuel Marquez had met his limit at lightweight, where he fought quite a few competitive battles that would excite but not entice Pacquiao to return to the brave Mexican.
A foolhardy move to face Mayweather at welterweight in 2009 ended in embarrassment, and possibly moved Marquez somehow even further away from a Pacquiao fight.
It wasn't until the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations failed repeatedly that Marquez finally got the opportunity to turn back the time machine and show Pacquiao once and for all who is the better man.
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