Juan Manuel Marquez has fought Manny Pacquiao four times and gone 1-2-1 against him, including a sixth-round knockout win in December. Pacquiao was looking at facing Marquez for a fifth time in a rematch, but Marquez chose to fight Timothy Bradley instead. Now he says he’s done fighting Pac-Man.
“With Manny Pacquiao, [I’m] finished there. I don’t want to fight with Manny Pacquiao because all finished. I won the last three fights. In four fights I won. I don’t want to fight with Manny again,” Marquez told The Los Angeles Times’ Lance Pugmire in an interview.
“I repeat: I don’t want to fight with Manny again because I won the last three fights,” he told Pugmire.
Marquez and Pacquiao fought to a draw in their first bout. Pac-Man won by split decision in 2008, a controversial majority decision in 2011, and then Marquez finally scored the first decisive victory in their series with the knockout in 2012.
There was speculation that Marquez turned down a fifth fight with Pacquiao because he did not want to go to Asia where Pac-Man wanted to fight for tax purposes. But he says he wanted to fight Bradley because he’s a champ.
“I want to win another belt,” says Marquez.
The two are scheduled to meet on Sept. 14.
I have to say, I was pretty tired of Pacquiao-Marquez fights and could surely go without seeing them fight again. At 39 years old, it’s quite possible that he’ll retire soon, too.
