By Rob Smith: 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez’s fight against Ukrainian Serhiy Fedchenko (30-1, 13 KO’s) is only two weeks away on April 14th at the New Mexico City Arena in Mexico City, Mexico. Marquez, 38, will be battling for the interim WBO light welterweight title, which seems rather unimportant given the past accomplishment for Marquez. However, he wants the strap because it adds yet another world title in another weight class for him. The real goal for Marquez is to fight WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao to try and avenge his two questionable losses in the past.
It’s interesting and disappointing at the same time that Marquez is fighting Fedchenko for the interim World Boxing Organization title because Fedchenko, 30, is still fighting 2nd tier opposition after 10 years as a pro and has fought only once 1st tier fighter, Kaizer Mabuza, and was beaten by him by a 12 round majority decision in 2009. Fedchenko went back to fighting 2nd tier opposition after that loss and has won his last seven fights against fighters with records like 8-2, 4-6-1, 37-14, 8-0-1, and 8-2. It’s unclear why Fedchenko has been kept on a soft diet for so long, but it could be that his loss to Mabuza made his people cautious about putting him in with a halfway decent fighter. Whatever the reason, it’s not a good predictor for success to see Fedchenko’s lack of experience going into a big fight with Marquez.
The fight will be a part of a split site HBO pay-per-view card with Brandon Rios taking on Richard Abril in the other big fight on the split site card. That’s a mismatch just like Marquez vs. Fedchenko is a mismatch. There’s talk about Marquez possibly facing Rios in July at the Cowboys stadium in Arlington, Texas. However, there’s also talk of Marquez fighting Mercito Gesta instead. That would make a lot more sense than having Marquez take on Rios and beat him. That would ruin a possible Rios vs. Manny Pacquiao fight that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has been talking about for 2013. Arum could still make the Rios-Pacquiao fight after Rios loses to Marquez, but I don’t the PPV numbers will be very good if Arum makes the mistake of putting Rios in with Marquez.