Pacquiao vs Marquez: Why Marquez Needs to End This Fight Early

When Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao fight for the third time later this week, Marquez should be aiming to end the fight as soon as possible.  If this fight lasts too long, or even goes the distance, Marquez is in trouble.

Marquez needed to add a lot of weight for this fight (roughly 10 to 15 pounds to be exact).  Because of this rapid change, he is not going to be used to his new body, making him much slower.

Marquez has shown us that when he adjusts his weight he struggles. He had to get up to his highest career weight for his fight against Floyd Mayweather, and he struggled badly. Because he could not end the fight early, he was slowly abused throughout the fight.

He lost that fight by unanimous decision (120-107, 119-108, 118-109), showing that when he adds weight he slows down.

Pacquiao has not had to adjust his weight for this fight, and he is going to be comfortable at this weight.  Pacquiao is a very quick fighter so, if Marquez hopes to have a chance in this one, he can't let Pac-Man land too many quick punches.

Marquez has added a significant amount of muscle for this fight, and he has to use it.  When he has open shots at Pacquiao he needs to hit him hard, because he isn't going to be getting a lot of them.

Pacquiao is going to be able to outlast Marquez in this one.  Marquez is in the twilight of his career, and his stamina is not what it used to be.  The latter rounds of this fight will be dominated by Pacquiao because of his stamina and quickness, so Marquez needs to end this fight as soon as he can.

The best strategy for Marquez is to land as many punches as he can in the early rounds, and when the fight gets to the fourth of fifth round he should look for an opening to land a punch to end it.

If Marquez fails to end this fight early then he is bound to be Pac-Man's next victim.

Josh Schoch is an aspiring sportswriter dedicated to bringing you everything related to the Pacquiao vs. Marquez fight, college basketball, the NFL, MLB, NBA, college football and much more.  Follow him on Twitter.