Schaefer's Marquez Gambit

The call for a dream fight in Pacman-Marquez 3 has dramatically grown more intense after Juan Manuel Marquez cut down Ring Magazine lightweight champion Joel Casamayor last Sunday, September 14 (Manila time), in Las Vegas, USA.

To be sure, a Pacman-Marquez trilogy has presented itself after the two brave and brilliant gladiators clashed in a rematch last March 2008 also in Las Vegas. Richard Schaefer, Golden Boy Promotions’ Chief Executive Officer, has said in a post-fight interview that the Oscar dela Hoya outfit can offer Pacman 6 million dollars to face Marquez in a third outing. Pacman did not grab the offer but instead went on to browse his order of battle and ended up signing a ring date with the Golden Boy himself—now dubbed “The Dream Match”—and set to rouse the boxing world on December 6, 2008, again in Las Vegas. Schaefer’s latest gambit is not so much about the prizefighter in Pacman, but rather it touches on the testicular ego of any fighter.

In a recent interview with setantasports.com, Scheafer insinuated that Pacman dreads facing Marquez again. Scheafer said that while he would like to see a Pacman-Marquez 3, he believes “that Pacquiao and his team know what the result would be... The money for Pacquiao-Marquez fight is there so it cannot be the money.” Scheafer also shot down the notion that Pacman picked Diaz over Marquez because of money. For facing Diaz, Pacman was reported to have pocketed a professional fee much smaller in amount than what Golden Boy earlier dangled to propose a Pacman-Marquez 3.

These are all calculated wordwork aimed at baiting the Pacman to descend to the level of Marquez. Many people say that Marquez is an intelligent fighter, whose rabid fans are now bracing up to raise him atop the pound-for-pound ranking, beside (if not ahead), or at least a notch below, the Pacman himself. This is where the irony lies. The branded Marquez brain hardly shows in how he attracts paying fans. The net effect is he remains dreaming for compensation that is anywhere close to what Pacman has been getting.

Although at one point the Pacman corner—after two epic ring battles—has already dismissed the Marquez question as answered, a third serving continues to draw so much interest for several reasons. One is what should be an obvious appreciation of the drawing potential of a third—and hopefully deciding—match at the box office. Another is pride of the Americas. And still another arises from the strategic positioning in the rivalry between the Golden Boy where Marquez belongs and Bob Arum’s Top Rank, to which Pacman is associated.

Pacman fans feel that Marquez does not have what it takes to beat Manny. Marquez should have lost the first time they met, but one judge who obviously did not know how to count or who probably forgotten what the rules say came to his rescue. Marquez salvaged a draw and kept his junior lightweight title which at the time was at stake. The second fight was also close, but the judges ruled that Pacman won it.

Marquez fans on the other hand think that Marquez won both fights. They claim that their fighter is a far superior boxer, technically and in terms of ringmanship (whatever that means), and as shown by his hitting Pacman with more precise, if not more telling, shots. (Maybe somebody should devise an alternative scoring scheme for fights that go the full distance, like looking at whose face gets more distorted at the end of the fight, or which boxer looks more spent and is gasping for more oxygen, etc.—but that would be another story.)

The inconclusiveness of the results of the two Pacman-Marquez fights is such that one wonders if both camps of Pacman and Marquez, or whoever boxing gods may exist out there, may have fixed the outcome so that a third fight can be this compelling. The succeeding forays by both fighters in the heavier lightweight division against separate opponents have produced impressive performances—Pacquiao stopping David Diaz in 9 and Marquez demolishing Casmayor in 11—all the more whetted the appetite of boxing fans for Pacman and Marquez to rumble one more time.

Some writers have declared that a Pacman-Marquez trilogy has now become a must. And observers will probably note that proponents of such a necessity mostly come from the Americas (particularly the North and Latin America). The Pacman has demolished the greatest boxers that America can shove in front of him atop the ring. It seems Marquez is the only one there is that can check American humiliation. While these proponents anticipate Pacman’s surrender at the hands of Oscar come December 6, they also concede that Pacman’s handicap in size does not inspire redemption for American pride.

People with a flair for commerce are also attracted to the what a Pacman-Marquez 3 can offer in terms of dollars. Such a dream fight has captured the imagination of boxing fans that it is easy to figure out the millions ready to come out and pay for it. But even here money makers will have to thank Pacman for a potential market that has grown dramatically huge. For challenging Oscar and the odds, Pacman has stoked the fire and passion for boxing as a sports spectacle the world has not seen since Henry Armstrong and Roberto Duran. Pacman simply has no match in the ring, and in projecting himself outside of it; he looms twice or thrice a draw after December 6.

Finally, Pacman and Marquez constitute a proxy war between the leading fight promoters today—Top Rank and Golden Boy. Like a tree that gets known and valued by the fruit it bears, promoters keep and expand their markets by the fighters they keep. Let no one forget that both promotion outfits had early on fought tooth and nail to lock Pacman into their stables, which makes the issues surrounding Pacman, Oscar, Marquez, Arum, among others, partake of something personal of some individuals concerned. But beyond all of the personal swipes that marred their professional ties lies the need to map their future. This is about strategy. Schaefer has laid the basis for it by baiting Pacman to face Marquez. But this has nothing to do with American pride. This has everything to do with commerce.