Watching Juan Manuel Marquez box leaves me ebullient because it proves to me, yet again, that his package of boxing skills is superior to current pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao’s. My perspective, from sitting comfortably in front of my iMac, is that Marquez was the unequivocal winner in both matches with Pacquiao.
Saturday night’s matchup of Juan Manuel Marquez vs Likar Ramos moved Marquez’s record to 53 Wins (39 knockouts), 5 Losses, 1 Draw. The Ramos match, which was supposed to be a tune-up fight for Marquez’s third fight with Pacquiao, didn’t last one round. Marquez closed the night with a modified 1-2: the left jab was put forth as a distraction before unloading the right hand that put Ramos on the canvas and guaranteed the Pacquiao matchup.
For the record, I am a huge Marquez fan (primarily because of his fights with Pacquiao), nevertheless I was not impressed with his last outing. The knockout that he delivered to Ramos was highly suspect: I get the sensation that Ramos threw the fight. Fight fans everywhere immediately began calling Ramos a bum, alleging that Top Rank fixed the fight or that Ramos threw the fight.
Likar Ramos is a former world champion, ergo he is expected to be able to take a punch. He’s trained and paid to, after all. Going down, eyes closed, and immobilized from an accurate-but-not-very-powerful-right-hand screamed sham. At best, I could accept a flash knockdown or a stumble where his glove touches the ground and is ruled a knockdown, but I can’t buy him sleeping. Me? I call it another boxing sham. I sincerely doubt Ramos was knocked out by that right hand: I believe Ramos called it an early night and went to cash his check.
