Pacquiao-Marquez III: Growing intrigue


LAS VEGAS (Nov. 11) – After ripping his shirt neckline to bellybutton and tossing its remains to a group of aghast Filipino fans, Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez mounted the MGM Grand scale Friday and weighed in at the welterweight limit. Marquez’s musculature was grotesque enough to make Manny Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, plead for an immediate ruling from “anyone who knows anyone with the USADA, great God!”

Now be honest. If you are a boxing fan sitting on the fence about his investment in Saturday’s Pacquiao-Marquez III pay-per-view, would a spectacle like that make you more or less inclined to buy the match? It’s a rhetorical question, frankly, for at least three reasons we’ll treat in a moment.

Tuesday brought news that a man in the Marquez camp – one known as Angel Hernandez and Angel Heredia and a few other friendly cognomens – 10 years ago provided performance-enhancing drugs to disgraced American Olympian Marion Jones. This revelation raised the possibility Marquez, a lightweight world champion who looked awful in a welterweight fight against Floyd Mayweather in 2009, had found someone to help him take advantage of Pacquiao’s skittishness round blood-testing needles, as it were.

Despite a temptation to bask in what irony the Pacquiao camp’s refusal to do blood testing may have wrought, we’re well-advised to dismiss the hypothetical weigh-in explored above.

Firstly, Marquez has been a man of integrity in our sport, one of its genuine shining lights, for a long time. He deserves every benefit of the doubt, no matter the rippling, back double biceps pose he hits on Friday’s scale.

Secondly, for all the reactionary dudgeon about PEDs sportswriters have heaped on the public in the last decade, fans, as a general rule, could not care less. We now know at least one of the stars of the Boston Red Sox 2004 World Series team was ingesting any PED he could get in his body, and yet, to this day, have you heard one Bostonian say “Boy, do I regret our snapping that curse!”?

Better yet, despite what we now know about Sammy Sosa’s historic run, have you ever heard a Chicagoan say “You know, when I think back to what happened in 2003, the possibility we might have won a World Series with the help of a PED-using athlete, I’m certainly glad we didn’t get out of the NLCS”?

Thirdly, promoter Bob Arum assured us Wednesday in two different conference calls that if, in the year 2011, we’re still fixated on steroids, why, we’re idiots.

“Many of you are really behind the times,” Arum said. “The conditioners who know what they are doing wouldn’t touch steroids because they are not as effective as the natural substances and the sophisticated training methods now used.”

There are lots of appropriate rebuttals to such a statement. A reader named Joel Stern offered an excellent one on Twitter: “I expect baseball players to start hitting 70 home runs a year again next year once they adopt (Arum’s) modern training methods.”

This year’s leading slugger belted 43 home runs. In 2001, Barry Bonds hit 73. That’s the difference between “the natural substances and the sophisticated training methods now used,” and steroids.

And before anyone offers up a loony rebuttal that boxing trainers have discovered some secret the rest of the sports world knows nothing about, he should visit a boxing gym. Eating ice chips, rubbing one’s body with Albolene and training in a garbage bag is the way most boxers still make weight in 2011. From such a laboratory next year’s Nobel Laureate in chemistry is not likely to emerge.

Tuesday’s news, though, can only help Pacquiao-Marquez III’s pay-per-view buy rate. The most commonly cited reason for not planning to buy the rubber match is that it will not be competitive because Pacquiao has beaten up natural welterweights while Marquez is not even as big as his lightweight opponents. The specter of Marquez being unnaturally large will help the fight sell because it will restore some hope to Marquez’s fans their guy has a chance.

He does. Marquez will always present a challenge to Pacquiao because Marquez has high ring intelligence and knows Pacquiao well. Pacquiao’s left cross, thrown from a southpaw stance, is his difference maker. But Marquez neutralizes that punch by doing two things other Pacquiao opponents do not: He hooks to Pacquiao’s lead shoulder, and he ducks down and to the right.

As an orthodox fighter, Marquez has few opportunities to hurt Pacquiao with left hooks to the head or body. The angles are all wrong. What Marquez has determined, though, is that a hard left hook to Pacquiao’s right shoulder spins Pacquiao leftwards, which takes away the balance upon which Pacquiao’s left cross relies. By the time Pacquiao gets resettled and launches the left cross, Marquez has time to find it and duck beneath it, sending Pacquiao over his left shoulder.

One other thing to consider is what happened when Marco Antonio Barrera made his third match with Erik Morales. Barrera had been summarily undone by Pacquiao a year before. Morales, meanwhile, was on a six-fight win streak and the larger man. As Barrera later said about their 2004 rubber match, “(Morales) came to bury me.”

Morales wanted to knock Barrera out so badly, though, that he eschewed good boxing. He held his right hand high and cocked, with no thought of defense. Barrera caught Morales with an uppercut in the fourth round and outboxed him the rest of the night, winning a majority decision.

Could Pacquiao be outboxed by Marquez? Sure. It has happened twice already. Can Marquez survive Pacquiao’s maniacal onslaught? Yes. That happened twice before, too.

But it says here it won’t be enough, again. Marquez will probably make it to the final bell, and Pacquiao will follow his corner’s instructions – something Morales never did – and win a comfortable decision.

I’ll take Pacquiao: UD-12, then – unless Marquez splits his seams at Friday’s weigh-in.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Trailers let parents take kids for a bike ride.

Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, NE) April 24, 2007 Byline: Michael O’Connor Apr. 24–Think of them as rickshaws for little kids — with mom or dad providing the horsepower. Bike trailers have been around for years, but Omaha cycling shops say they’ve been selling more in recent years. The Bike Rack, for example, says sales increased by more than 20 percent last year over the previous year. One reason sales are up is newer features such as quick-release wheels that make the carts easier to pack in your car or van. And more parents are catching the bike bug and want to hit the trails. Rather than hiring a baby sitter, they’re hitching up trailers and taking their kids along for the ride.

Dan Sitzman, who lives in central Omaha, said his 3-year-old daughter loves the cart. He rides the Keystone Trail and stops at parks along the way so his daughter can get out and play. “This is our time to get away,” he said. The trailers provide room for one child or a pair. Prices range from less than $100 to more than $400, depending on brand, size and features. Some of the newer trailers are easier to fold up, said Kelly Smith, a manager of the Bike Rack, 14510 Eagle Run Drive. That helps when it’s time to store them in the basement or garage. And if you like to run and ride, there are more models that convert into jogging strollers such as those made by Burley, Croozer and In-Step. At Scheels All Sports in the Village Pointe shopping center, prices for such carts range from $250 to $400, said Anthony Gall, who’s in charge of bike accessories. Nancy Line bought a bike trailer for her family this spring. Her family lives near 153rd and Fort Streets, about three miles from a park. Walking to the park would be too much of a hike, but with the bike trailer it’s a quick trip. She straps her 3-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter in the trailer and they’re off. The kids weren’t thrilled with the trailer on the first try. It took them a while to get used to wearing a helmet and being strapped in the small trailer. But soon they couldn’t wait to go for a ride. So what’s it’s like pulling two kids behind you? Not bad, Line said. The trailers have big tires, which helps them roll along without a lot of effort, she said. “It’s really smooth,” she said. Greg Marzullo, president of the Omaha Pedalers Bicycle Club, said he’s spotted more of the trailers. He thinks more parents are realizing that the trailers are safer than the child bike seats that attach to the frame of the parent’s bike. go to web site bike trailer this web site bike trailer

With those bike seats, the child sits right behind the parent. If the parent’s bike goes down, the kid goes with it. The hitch that connects a trailer to the parent’s bike has a swivel. If the parent’s bike falls over, the trailers are designed to stay upright. Line said the trailers are a great option for parents looking for a way to get the family outside. Her kids think the ride to the park is an adventure. “They feel like they’re going on a journey,” she said.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.