Manny Pacquiao vs Juan Manuel Marquez

Juan Manuel "Dinamita" Márquez Méndez (born August 23, 1973 in Mexico City), is a mexican professional boxer and the current WBA and WBO Lightweight world champion as well as the current Ring Magazine Lightweight champion. He has also held the IBF, WBA, and WBO Featherweight titles, and the WBC Super Featherweight title. He is the fifth Mexican boxer to become a world champion in three different weight classes after Marco Antonio Barrera, Érik Morales, Julio César Chávez, and later Fernando Montiel.

Personal life

Márquez has a brother named Rafael Márquez, who is a former world champion at the Bantamweight, and Super bantamweight division. The two are listed in Ring Magazine's top ten pound for pound list. They are one of four sets of Mexican brothers to hold world titles. Márquez and his wife, Erika, have two sons and a daughter.

Professional career

Márquez had an amateur record of 35-1 that included two Golden Glove tournament wins. He made his professional boxing debut at age 19 on May 29, 1993, and lost his first bout via disqualification to Javier Duran.

First fight with Márquez

Only six months after Pacquiao's win over Mexican legend Barrera, Pacquiao went on to challenge another highly respected Mexican boxer in Juan Manuel Márquez, who at the time held both the World Boxing Association (WBA) and International Boxing Federation (IBF) featherweight world titles. The fight took place at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, on May 8, 2004, and after twelve rounds the bout was scored a draw, which proved to be a controversial decision that outraged both camps.

In the first round Márquez was caught cold, as he was knocked down three times by a more lively Pacquiao. However, Márquez showed great heart to recover from the early knockdowns, and went on to win the majority of rounds thereafter. This was largely due to Márquez's counterpunch style, which he managed to effectively utilize against the aggressive style of Pacquiao. At the end of a very close fight, the final scores were 115–110 for Márquez, 115–110 for Pacquiao, and 113–113. One of the judges (who scored the bout 113–113) later admitted to making an error on the scorecards, because he had scored the first round as "10–7" in favor of Pacquiao instead of the standard "10–6" for a three-knockdown round.[12] Consequently, both parties felt they had done enough to win the fight.

Rematch with Márquez

On March 15, 2008, in a rematch against Juan Manuel Márquez called "Unfinished Business", Pacquiao won via a disputed split decision. The fight was held at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. With victory, Pacquiao won the WBC and Ring Magazine super featherweight belts (as well as the lineal junior lightweight title), making him the first Filipino to win three major world titles in three different weight divisions (Pacquiao was a former WBC flyweight champion and former IBF super bantamweight champion). However, with his Ring Magazine featherweight belt, Pacquiao had de facto won four world titles in four different weight classes at this point.

The fight was a close hard fought battle, during which both fighters received cuts. Throughout the fight Márquez landed the most punches at a higher percentage; however, the decisive factor proved to be a third round knockdown, wherein Márquez was floored by a Pacquiao left hook. At the end of the fight, the judges' scores were 115-112 for Pacquiao, 115-112 for Márquez, and 114-113 for Pacquiao.

In the post-fight press conference, Márquez’s camp called for an immediate rematch. In addition, Richard Schaefer, Golden Boy Promotions CEO, offered a 6 million dollar guarantee to Pacquiao for a rematch. However, Pacquiao ruled out a third clash with Márquez, stating: "I don't think so. This business is over." The reason that Pacquiao did not want a rematch was because he intended to move up to the lightweight division, in order to challenge David Díaz, the reigning WBC lightweight world champion at that time. Díaz won the majority decision over Ramón Montano that night as an undercard of the "Unfinished Business" fight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_M%C3%A1rquez