This fight is probably the biggest fight of the last 15 years or so that actually didn't happen. Yea, many of the big fights happened too late, but eventually did happen. This one never happened at all. It seems weird that Marquez never fought Hamed, never fought Morales and fought Barrera when MAB was running on fumes. The only guy he really fought was Pacquiao. And then some good fighters like Gainer and John. That was a trash robbery by the way. It just seems odd that Marquez missed 3 of the 4 opponents he should have fought. Well I suppose if you count a 2007 Barrera he only missed 2 them.
Marquez's problem was he was "promoted" by Top Rank the same way that company "promoted" Rigondeaux. He was pretty much just an after-thought for Bob the entire time he was with the company. Morales was one of the golden boys during their shared time with the company; that's why Marquez was kept away from him and that's why Marquez was bumped off the immediate Pacquiao rematch. I like Morales enough not to call it a duck on his part, but it was never Marquez's fault for sure. And the one time Morales did actually want to fight Marquez, it was when he was largely irrelevant and Marquez had the chance to jump from Golden Boy for Pacquiao III.
Yeah, Morales was always favored when the two were with Top Rank. One of the additional reasons Marquez turned down a fight with Morales in 2011 besides the prospect of a third Pacquiao fight is because he felt he was never given that kind of chance when it was Morales who was the more relevant fighter back when they were featherweights.
If I was Marquez I probably would have fought him 2011. At that point Morales was a sitting duck. But I suppose Marquez chose to not give him a payday or just move on out of frustration of not getting the fight. I can understand why Bob wanted to protect Morales (if that's the case). Morales back in the early 2000's was really viewed as this unstoppable warrior and one of the all time best lower weight fighters in boxing history. A fighter who could only be slowed by Marco Antonio Barrera. No doubt Arum wanted to milk that MAB trilogy for all it was worth. A loss to Marquez would have damaged Morales' reputation as this incredible force of nature who just blew through everybody except MAB.
In Arum's mind, Marquez posed to much of a threat to beat Morales, and since Morales was the type of fighter who was fan friendly and easily lured into a brawl, he was more marketable than Marquez who was the consumate pocket counterpuncher. For Arum is kind of the same parallel as Donaire getting beat by Rigo. Donaire simply the much easier fighter to promote. Hindsight say's though that Bob Arum severely underestimated Juan Manuel Marquez' warrior spirit. The man is simply not just safety first skilled counterpuncher. He's a counterpuncher yes, but he shows up to display fistic dominance and Bob Arum simply didn't factor that attribute in, to get Marquez better quality fights against the very top tier.
Arum didn't want his prize possessions to fight a threat like Marquez. And Arum just knew in his mind that Pac could beat Marquez. Marquez like Hopkins proved his critics wrong. MAB nor EM never wanted Marquez in their prime. If they did, they would've snapped a finger to it...and Arum was ok with that. Don't put any blame on Marquez.
I kind of agree with the comparison but with 2 qualifications. First, Bob did consider making the Donaire-Rigondeaux fight earlier, back in 2011. What's notable about that though is that he did so precisely when he didn't have Donaire locked into a long-term contract. After Donaire became a Top Rank fighter again, that fight went on the backburner. I have little doubt a similar scenario would've played out if Morales had been in a position to leave before Marquez. Second, the Donaire-Rigondeaux fight did actually get made when most people predicted Donaire would whoop him. Donaire was fresh off a FOTY campaign where he was dominating opponents, and Rigondeaux looked chinny against Marroquin and had been inactive for over a year after the Poonsawat fight got cancelled. Of course, fat lot of good that did Nonito and Bob :rofl:roflatsch
