A Premature Prediction On Floyd Mayweather Jr VS Juan Manuel Marquez

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."- Michael Corleone

With our second super mega fight just less than two months away boxing is back in the lime light. The return of Floyd Mayweather Jr, the undefeated American former pound for pound boxer in the world is returning to the ring to reclaim his throne.

Mayweather is not yet stepping into the ring with the widely popular current number one pound for pound fighter Manny Pacquiao, but he is fighting another top pound for pound fighter in Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez. A man that many thought defeated Pacquiao in their previous fights.

Marquez is giving up a significant weight advantage to Mayweather for agreeing to come up in weight two weight classes to meet at a catch weight within the welter weight limit.

Despite a large excited population that firmly believes that Pacquiao is indeed the current number one pound for pound fighter in the world, there is also a significant amount of people who feel a legitimate case can be made that both Floyd Mayweather or Juan Manuel Marquez is actually the rightful owner of the pound for pound title as well.

So without confusing the casual fight fan any further lets just say this fight on July 18th will clear up some confusion on who is indeed on the top three spots of the pound for pound rankings.

Now on paper right away the safe answer would be that Mayweather will win this fight come July 18. But if one were to take a deeper analysis on the many factors involved with this particular fight then one must include the many variable factors involved as well, such as: How will Mayweather's year and a half hiatus from the ring affect his performance come fight night? How much will the weight advantage affect Juan's ability to do significant damage to Floyd? How will the politics of boxing affect the decision of this fight with the biggest super mega ultra fight in all of our radars? Yes, Pacquiao vs Mayweather.

When you break down this fight with how these fighters have fought in their most recent fights, considering their fighting styles, strengths and weaknesses it is interesting to note that Mayweather and Marquez are very similar in many ways.

Both Mayweather and Marquez are naturally counter punchers. Meaning they tend to fire only when their opponent opens up or makes a mistake. Marquez is probably the best counter puncher in the sport right now. Juan also will be willing to actually trade and stand toe to toe more so than Floyd will be willing to. Floyd is probably the most precise puncher in the game. When he sees an opening he hits his target so clean and accurately that he often does not even waste a single punch.

Both Mayweather and Marquez are technically advanced skilled fighters they think before they make their next move and on top of that they are already thinking about their follow up second and third move much like a chess match.

This brings up another common characteristic of both fighters that happens to be a common weakness that they both have which is they are both weakest and most vulnerable in the very beginning of their fights. In Juan's first few rounds in both Pacquiao fights he was most vulnerable and suffered a combine total of 4 knockdowns. Juan was also getting caught and hurt by the constant pressure of Diaz in the beginning of their title fight as well. Floyd is also the same way. You can literally see Floyd observing and feeling out his opponent for the first round or two and this observing process often causes Floyd to get hit clean and pushed around off balance and knocked off his game plan as it happened in the first few rounds of his fights with Oscar De La Hoya and more so with Hatton and Judah.

As the fight goes on into the middle rounds both Juan and Floyd tend to get more focused, stronger and in command of the fight. Juan tends to go for a stoppage where Floyd generally will dance and outbox his opponent to a safe decision victory.

Unfortunately Juan will most likely need a stoppage to guarantee a win over Floyd seeing that this fight really is just a commercial advertisement for the super mega ultra fight that I mentioned earlier. Can Juan stop Floyd? Unfortunately that is highly unlikely due to the significant weight difference and the fact that Floyd never really gets cleanly hit or in serious trouble and when he does he tends to just shoulder roll his way to safety with ease.

Floyd definitely has the speed advantage in this fight and will probably just pot shot and dance his way to a decision victory.  

If Juan really wants to go for the win he needs to jump on Floyd from the opening bell and try to pressure Floyd and exploit the ring rust as much as he can in those early rounds and really go for the early stoppage for once Floyd gets his game back in line towards the middle rounds he will most likely make it look like another Baldomir fight but more competitive obviously.

The safe easy bet, given the politics of what this fight truly is and what it is leading up to and given that Floyd's ring rust is not that major, is a decision victory for Mayweather.

Whether it is a legitimate decision ruling, or a crowd pleasing victory is yet to be seen.

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