I think for Manny, he's fought at this weight a little longer. He's fought at welterweight for a while now. He is a full-fledged 147-pounder. He just has to be himself, be explosive, be very physical in that ring and do the things that Manny does and see if Marquez can handle the weight, especially early. Obviously, the later the fight goes, the more trouble there could be for Pacquiao just because Marquez is great at making adjustments. Manny knows if he doesn't get him out of there early, or if he feels the power of Pacquiao early and he takes it well, Manny knows he's got problems. He's definitely got problems on his hands. I think Marquez has to weather the early storm and be smart. Hopefully he can handle this weight. I mean, he looks great. He looks in peak physical condition, but I'm just not sure if he handles 144 pounds well, and I won't know until the fight, so it's gonna be tough to say if this will be a continuation of the other two fights.
I hope the added weight doesn't make Marquez think that he can stand and trade with Manny. I think he's too smart of a fighter to do that, and one thing that Nacho Beristain said, and it kind of made sense, is it may be easier to fight Manny Pacquiao now that he has developed all of these other tools. He's not so unpredictable and he fights more of a predictable set pattern. So if that's the case, it may be a little bit easier for him if he comes out establishing his jab, moving, and countering the way he does. But you just don't know how, and at this late stage of his career, at this weight, he's never fought really well at this weight. He looks to be in great shape, and I know for the Floyd Mayweather fight, they said that he gained weight the wrong way and he was fighting a guy that was so much bigger. Pacquiao doesn't have the reach advantage that Floyd had on him.
I personally scored the first two fights for Marquez. I thought he won both fights. Arguably, you can say the first fight, it was a 10-6 first round, but after the second round on, it was hard-pressed for me to give Manny a round in that fight. Marquez just completely started to shut him down. Maybe people got caught up in the fact that this guy was on his back really 4 times in the first round, they ruled one a slip, but I think people start looking at that a little too much. Every time I watch that fight, I see Marquez winning a split decision. I thought he won the second fight clear. I thought he was more than a couple of rounds ahead to where even when he got knocked down and if you had him losing that round 10-8, I thought he still should have prevailed.
With all of that being said, all of those fights were fought at a better weight for Juan Manuel Marquez. I don't know...he hasn't shown the same kind of consistency that I like to see a fighter have from 140 and above, so I'm going to go with Pacquiao. I think Pacquiao wins this fight, but he's going to have some tough moments, even early. He will have some tough moments because Marquez is a great fighter, but at the end of the day, I think Pacquiao by either late round stoppage or decision.