First off Juan Manuel Marquez is a true champion according to the bare knuckle tradition. The modern American idea of a champion is an unbeatable fighter, who may well lack courage, and have no care for his supporters. The important thing in a materialistic age when the most highly regarded boxing champion has the nick name ‘Money’ is that he sells tickets and PPV buys. The fact that this man lacks the courage to fight the number 2 man in his class, despite being a heavy favorite, serves as a contrast with the age that originated the sport, with the not quite dead age that Mexican fighters like Marquez exemplify.

Old Time and pioneer boxers represented ethnic groups, gangs, or nations. They fought for pride, could not rack up a lead and then run and hide and still maintain their status among fans. That prideful ‘champion’ was Marquez against the larger less skilled Alvarado, who he let into the fight, and risked losing it to, at the end, in order to show the level of courage that Mexican fans expect from their champions. Marquez is a hold over from an age when champions were self-made and anointed by the fans, not bought, paid for, and marketed by promoters.

With Marquez there is another example of the superior appreciation of boxing in early times as compare to now. HBO sports no longer measures wingspan reach but arm length. This does take into account part of a fighter’s shoulder development, the part that we refer to as the ‘cannonball’ where it extends beyond the armpit. This measurement does not account for the broader upper back of a fighter like Marquez which not only enhances power, but effects reach with the rear hand. If you take a narrow shouldered girl with 32 inch arms and have her stand in front of a broad backed man with 32 inch arms, when they throw their rear hands, his reach will be greater with the rear hand.

Any fighter can learn from watching Marquez, and we can count ourselves lucky that Alvarado had the toughness to expose the master’s entire tool kit. Look for the following aspects of Marquez’s game to get a grip on his technical virtuosity:

1. Hand discipline. Marquez keeps his hands consistently up without covering his own field of vision. He also uses a hand span left guard religiously which most fighters no longer do.

2. Marquez’s jab is varied in four versions; blind, power, sneaky, and up, the latter which he lands to the body and the face, and is probably mistaken as an uppercut by most observers.

3. The high wing [elbow guard with bent arm] block

4. The best counterpunching, and therefore the best power punch percentage, in the game.

Also note during this fight the excellent referee, Pat Russel, who is the best in his game. Juan Manuel Marquis not only gave a clinic on how to take a part a large, strong, tough, and determined fighter, but also took us back to the golden age of boxing, and further, the modern sport’s beginning in America, when a champion was not a money maker for a few fat cats, but a representative of a people’s passion and pride.