Marquez Fights for Mexico, History

In an amount of time smaller than any second could be split, and faster than even he can bob, weave and hurl a counterpunch, Juan Manuel Marquez leaps to an answer with enough enthusiasm you'd be forgiven for thinking someone had just asked a kid to the prom.

"It's a tremendous responsibility and an honor to carry the flag of Mexico," says Marquez through a translator, when discussing the biggest motivation in Saturday's likely fight of the year candidate with Juan Diaz (Saturday, 10PM HBO). "That's what pushes me and motivates me."

If parents were this proud of having children, the world would be dangerously overpopulated.

There may, in fact, be more motivators for Marquez (49-4-1, 36 KOs) than there are people in attendance for Saturday's lightweight championship bout with Diaz (34-1, 17 KOs), even if they sell Houston's Toyota Center out. He carries in The Ring Magazine lightweight title and his claim to the 135-pound linear title, following Marquez's 11th-round TKO of Joel Casamayor in his first fight in the division. The WBA and WBO titles, too, are at stake, after former champion Nate Campbell failed to make weight for his Feb. 14 fight.

Then there's the eye toward legacy, the chance to put yet another marquee fighter on the 35-year-old Marquez's resume and make up for years lost in boxing's backwaters. Beat Diaz, who, at 25 is a decade younger, a natural lightweight (Marquez is just two-and-a-half years removed from fighting at featherweight), and, one year ago, was the undisputed champion of the lightweight division, and Marquez will sit atop a third division in his career, the most divisions any Mexican fighter has ever won.

And for Marquez, boxing's finest tactician, there's the simple thrill of figuring out the Baby Bull.

"Juan Diaz is a great fighter," Marquez says. "And I would love the chance to be the undisputed lightweight champion of the world. I have prepared myself for that."

But above all, there is the pride of his home country, which, in the wake of the defeat and defaming of Antonio Margarito, after it was found the wildly popular welterweight had applied a plaster-like substance between the tape on his fists prior to his loss to Shane Mosley, would appreciate a pick-me-up from its favorite son.

Yet no matter how intense the spotlight, Marquez would do anything to keep sweating it out.



For years, the fighter was virtually a password to the boxing cognoscenti. Dedicated fans and the occasional scribe caught on to the fact he could fight more than just a little, but it wasn't until his 2004 draw with Manny Pacquiao, in which Marquez lifted himself off the canvas three times in the first round to force the tie, that the rest of the world took notice.

It was, in a sense, a coming out party for Marquez. And perhaps aptly a metaphor for what was about to happen.

Marquez' career has in too many difficult ways followed the parallel of that fight.. For the next four years, Marquez always seemed to be figuratively fighting from behind, lifting himself off the canvas just to keep going and get to the final round and not quite get the payoff he'd hoped for

He fought twice more in Las Vegas after the bout with Pacquiao, but then the IBF stripped him of his title belt after no promoter bid on his bout with the mandatory challenger. The WBA then forced a bout with Chris John, which elicited a single bid but was eventually sold to an Indonesian promotions company, John's home nation.

So Marquez flew to Indonesia and fought John, an undefeated fighter, who, at least stateside, had all the name recognition of the cab driver that took Marquez to the airport.

And suddenly it was the first round with Pacquiao all over again.

"That was the low point for me," Marquez says somberly. "After all that work to win the belts and someone just points a finger and decides to strip me. The blood, the sweat, for them to take my belt, to be robbed against Chris John. But after that I knew nothing could break my concentration."

Whatever didn't kill Marquez's made him stronger. And angrier.

And a well-versed traveler.

He fought in Stateline, Nev., a town of 1,200 people you probably couldn't find even if you knew which state line it was on. Then there was a stopover in Hidalgo, Texas, a border town Messrs Rand and McNally might wonder exactly where it is.

And then he signed with Golden Boy Promotions and trampolined his career back into the mainstream, punishing then-Golden Boy partner Marco Antonio Barrera across 12 lopsided rounds.

"I can't tell you how much they've meant to me and my career," Marquez says. "I'm happy to have a good promoter, a good training camp, a good team and all the support behind me. I'm finally doing what I want to."

Marquez even earned another shot against Pacquiao, which turned into a brilliantly close split decision and solidified the Mexican fighter's spot just behind Pacquiao in the pound-for-pound rankings.



So, now that Marquez is sitting in the penthouse of the boxing world, you'll forgive him for stretching his legs out and putting his feet on the coffee table.

"It's great to finally be where I want," he says. "I always knew it could happen."

Few fighters have paid as much as Marquez has for his career and had little show for it other than enough frequent flyer miles to fly all of Mexico City to a bout. He spent years out of the spotlight before his recent run of high-profile fights.

"Five years of my career were wasted," Marquez says. "It was like someone put me in a room and locked me away. They kept saying hold on, you'll get your turn. But it didn't happen until I signed with Golden Boy and now in a short period I've gotten what I want."

Now he stands just a day away from doing what only a few Mexican fighters have done and what none has topped. Beat Diaz for the vacant WBA and WBO titles, and Marquez will become just the fourth of his countrymen to be a three-division champion, following Julio Cesar Chavez, Erik Morales and Barrera.

But even if boxing's finest counterpuncher can't solve the come-forward aggression of Diaz, or the jabbing display Diaz put on in his victory over Michael Katsidis, Marquez is, at long last, happy.

"Everything up until now has just made me stronger," says Marquez, who this time is headlining a card featuring Chris John, instead of facing him half a world away. "It hurt in the past, getting stripped of the titles, losing, but I've given everything I have to the sport I love and would do it again. And here I am about to be undisputed lightweight champion of the world, where I want to be."

Champion, and proud to be adored by a nation.