5 Reasons Juan Manuel Marquez Gives Manny Pacquiao so Many Problems

For all the media space devoted to endless discussions, dissections and speculations about a hypothetical super-fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr, the premier boxing rivalry of this era is obvious: Pacman versus Juan Manuel Marquez. 

For 36 rounds over three fights, these two first-ballot Hall of Famers have battled back and forth in one of the most technically well boxed, hotly contested and competitive series in boxing history. 

The official record stands at 2-0-1 Pacquiao, but Marquez believes he won all three and there is no shortage of fans and writers who strongly agree with him about at least one or two of those decisions. 

Of the people who think Pacquiao won all of them, even his fiercest loyalists would all admit that Juan Manuel Marquez has had the singular ability to make the legendary Pacman look mortal, repeatedly. 

His Resiliency

Juan Manuel Marquez has never been knocked out in over 60 professional fights. But he has been knocked down a lot, for an elite fighter, and more often than not he has come back strong the very next round. 

Never was that more true than during his first fight with Pacquiao in May of 2004. The first round of that fight (shown here) is one that you can see countless times and still be amazed by.

Pacquiao, just 25 at the time, exploded on Marquez and connected repeatedly with his big left hand. He dropped Marquez three times. After the third knockdown, there were still 30 brutal seconds for Marquez to ride out, during which he ate several more left hands from Pacquiao. 

I don't believe more than a handful of fighters in the history of the sport could have done what Marquez did next, climbing out of a 10-6 deficit on the cards to earn a draw, which required him to dominate Pacquiao for large sections of the fight. 

Pacquiao fights like a hurricane, unloading concussive punishes from dizzying angles. Anybody who fights him has to be prepared to get hit by him, or else they'll spend the night running away from him.

Marquez excels at absorbing punishment and not getting discouraged or even very visibly effected by it. Against a big hitter like Pacquiao, that is a decided advantage.  

The Timing of His Counter-Punching

Juan Manuel Marquez is famous for his aggressive counter-punching. That's not an easy game to play against a fighter like Pacquiao, who has explosive speed, knockout power in both hands and the ability to score from unorthodox angles. Any fighter who gives Pacquiao the chance to get off first runs the risk of not getting his own chance to respond. 

Pacquiao is clearly faster than Marquez, but where Marquez has the edge is in timing. Timing can beat speed more often than not.

When Tropical Storm Manny starts to touch down around Marquez, he remains as steadfast as a sailor on deck, manning a big .50 caliber. He picks up Pacquiao's punches very early and delivers his own back more efficiently.

Even when Pacquiao lands, Marquez is rarely surprised by it. And with his chin, he's not going to get laid out by anything he sees coming. More often than not, his return volley is already en route.

The video included here is part of an excellent series by The Boxing Blitz. They slow down and analyze the second Pacquiao-Marquez fight to argue that the judges got it wrong.

People are still going to debate whether or not this video "proves" Marquez should have gotten the "W," though it should certainly be watched by anybody who wants to seriously debate the subject.

It also illustrates perfectly Marquez's uncanny knack for timing Pacquiao's initial onslaughts and then disrupting them with shocking, well-aimed counter-punching flurries. 

Marquez Has Superior Footwork

Marquez made a mistake against Pacquiao's ferociously explosive southpaw stance in the first round of their first fight and it very nearly cost him everything. It probably would have cost him a large part of what will always be a part of his legacy: that many fans and writers perceive him as having gotten the better of Pacquiao on at least one or two occasions. 

Since that round, Marquez has outmaneuvered Pacquiao on a consistent basis. Pacquiao is extremely quick and powerful, unorthodox yet expertly trained by Freddie Roach, and he has certainly been able to disrupt Marquez at moments, winning his share of rounds even on pro-Marquez cards.

But Marquez has been adroit at maintaining the better balance from which to minimize damage and maximize his ability to launch a counter-assault.

Pacquiao has been better at landing the unexpected bombs, and to some that justifies him winning twice. But Marquez has always been the better chessman.

This aspect of the game seems to get lost on a lot of people who favor Pacquiao, in my opinion. That's largely the judges, of course, but I'll also point fingers at members of the HBO Broadcast team who are not named Max Kellerman. 

And I'll point fingers as well at all the people who are likely to post in the comment sections about how Marquez always keeps backing up. Marquez backs up, steps right and then attacks aggressively forward. 

That's called tactics. It's the heart of why they call it the Sweet Science. 

An Old-Fashioned Commitment to Attacking the Body

It is something of a boxing cliche to say that "body punching is a forgotten art." If you wanted to defend that statement, you could use the linked video here as Exhibit A, and Jim Lampley would be Public Enemy Numero Uno.  

This is part four of the "Manny Pacquiao Deception." The guy editing these videos really does a terrific job of slowing down every scoring exchange. One thing I noticed watching it is that Lampley seems actually incapable of noticing when Marquez lands a solid body shot.

He overreacts to Pacquiao punches that are almost entirely deflected or averted, but not a peep when Marquez digs in to Pacman's rib cage. 

Over the course of a 12-round fight, the potentially organ-bruising shots to the body are the ones that slow a fighter down in the late rounds. The shots Marquez laid into Pacquiao's body all fight long in the second clash were probably a significant factor in Marquez's ability to take Round 12 going away. 

He Has the Tools to Finesse Pacquiao's Southpaw Stance

A southpaw stance throws off a lot of fighters, especially when the southpaw in question has the kind of speed and agility of Manny Pacquiao along with power in his lead right hand. 

The essential difficulty an orthodox fighter confronts with a southpaw is that every normal, ingrained movement that the fighter usually makes to circle away from trouble ends circling him into danger against the lefty. Once a southpaw fighter gets his lead right foot outside of the orthodox fighter's lead left, he is in the ideal position to score with the left cross. 

The first round of the first Pacquiao-Marquez fight was a classic example of this.

But more often, Marquez has provided the perfect example of how to finesse a southpaw. He is almost continually backing up, circling right and moving forward with his lead leg positioned outside on Pacquiao. 

It's why he is able to score so often with flush overhand rights. Essentially, to beat a left-handed fighter, the right-handed fighter has to give him a taste of his own medicine.   

When Pacquiao adjusts, Marquez patiently resets. His excellent ability to fight backing up is critical here, because it allows him to create enough space to circle out, instead of getting swarmed by a Pacquiao attack. 

Because Marquez is so adept at finessing Pacquiao's southpaw stance, he avoids getting hit with as many surprise bombs as the typical Pacman victim.