LAS VEGAS, (Reuters) – Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez has embraced his widely perceived role as the underdog for Saturday’s non-title welterweight fight against undefeated American Floyd Mayweather Jr.
“It is an extra motivation,” five-times world champion Marquez, 36, told reporters at the MGM Grand yesterday. “My condition is great and I am ready to fight. I can do it.”
The Mexico City native, beloved in his homeland, boasts a 50-4-1 record with 37 knockouts and has won world titles at three different weights.
In his most recent bout in February, Marquez stopped Juan Diaz in the ninth round of a furious slugfest to claim the American’s IBO lightweight title along with the vacant WBA and WBO crowns.
However, that fight was only the second for the Mexican in the lightweight class, and the former featherweight champion is moving up two more weights to challenge Mayweather, who is returning to the ring after a 21-month retirement.
“A lot of people think (I can’t win) because of the weight,” said Marquez. “But I have trained very hard on my strength and my muscles. I have been lifting stones in the mountains. I feel good.”
Mayweather, a five-division world champion who is already accepted as one of the greatest boxers of any era, acknowledged Marquez as one of the best fighters of his generation.
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“He’s a hell of a fighter: a boxer, a counter-puncher,” said the flamboyant American, who will be bidding to maintain an unblemished career record of 39-0 with 25 knockouts.
“But I’ve been around the sport a long time. I adapt to a lot of different styles.”
Marquez believes his best chance of success against Mayweather will hinge on effective use of the jab.
“I’m working a lot with my jab,” he said. “I need to move my body because he (Mayweather) has long arms, and I need to land my punch to the body.
“I must throw combinations, many punches — one, two three, four. I need to throw lots of punches. I need to throw to the body and then feint.”
For Marquez, his hotly anticipated clash with Mayweather will mark the pinnacle of a career during which he has often laboured in the shadows of his more illustrious compatriots Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera.
“This fight has changed my life, it has changed my career,” he said. “It’s a wonderful thing. The Mexican people all the time support me. They go crazy for me. If I win this fight, the people will go crazy. It will be wonderful.”
