20.09.09 – Pers McRead – We all saw what happened tonight at the MGM Grand. That was a blatant mismatch! Floyd Mayweather Jr. just totally outclassed Juan Manuel Marquez, the #2 P4P fighter in the world, the man who went to hell-and-back against Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather was just too fast and too skilled for Marquez. The current #1 pound-for-pound fighter couldn’t do that to Marquez. In fact, Marquez may have won more rounds against Pacquiao in their two classic matchups..
It will be remembered that Mayweather didn’t lose his P4P status in the ring. It merely went to Pacquiao when Mayweather retired after his fight against Britain’s Ricky “Hitman” Hatton in December 2007. Now, in view of his dominant performance against Marquez, he should be reinstated to P4P #1 status.
Not so fast. It seems there might be other things to consider.
First, let us not forget that Marquez was moving up two weight classes to fight Mayweather. His last two fights were at lightweight and the majority of his fights were at featherweight. The big diiference in size between the two combatants was very evident tonight. Weight classes were made for a purpose and that was nowhere more obvious than tonight at the MGM Grand.
Secondly, the Marquez dominated by Mayweather was not the same Marquez who fought Pacquiao. Marquez’ first fight against Pacquiao was when they were both featherweights. Pacquiao-Marquez 2 was fought in the junior-lightweight limit. When Marquez went up to lightweight and fought a shot Casamayor he was slower and more hittable. The scorecards were even at the time he KO’ed Casamayor. In his second lightweight fight against Juan Diaz, Marquez was losing on the cards before he KO’ed Diaz, and the featherfisted Diaz came closer to knocking Marquez out than Mayweather did tonight.
The fact that Mayweather came in 2 pounds over the contracted catchweight limit of 144 during the weigh-in suggests some things. Mayweather may have never attempted to make 144 at all. He knows that the fight will still go on even if he is overweight so he is contented to pay JMM the 600K as penalty knowing that the extra two pounds will give him more additional pounds when he bulks up for fight night. Mayweather is fully aware that the extra poundage would enable him to absorb Marquez’ punches better. The result was that Marquez’ punches have no effect at all to Mayweather tonight.
Many believe the reason why Mayweather did not allow the HBO crew to weigh him tonight as is customary in all HBO PPV’s is that he was weighing anywhere from 156 to 160 pounds tonight. If you look at Mayweather and Marquez side by side and in a staredown during the weigh-in you could see that Marquez was thicker and wider and you can almost say that he even looks bigger than PBF. Contrast that to how Marquez and Mayweather looked together in the ring tonight and you could see that Mayweather was so much bigger than Marquez. That means he put on at least 10 pounds between the weigh-in and fight night. Based on Mayweather’s last fights, we already knew that he will be bigger than Marquez but we were not prepared to see him that much bigger than Marquez.
When Castillo came in overweight and KO’ed Corrales in their rematch, everybody cried foul because they knew Castillo deliberately came in overweight knowing Corrales would still go on with the fight nonetheless. There was nothing different there than what PBF did this time against Marquez. I wonder where all those people who labeled Castillo a cheater are now.
Let the debates begin.