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It was a big weekend of boxing across the globe but the biggest action took place last night at the Toyota Center in Houston, TX, with two world title fights on tap.
The clash for lightweight supremacy took place with the WBA, WBO and IBO titles at stake in a battle royale between former divisional kingpin Juan Diaz and ex-feather and super feather world champ Juan Manuel Marquez.
As expected, Diaz came out of the blocks on fire, forcing Marquez back with the unrelenting hailstorm of leather that has won him countless fights and the 25 year old Houston native enjoyed a good deal of success in the early rounds.
While he did land a good deal of flush shots, particularly the quick and accurate left hook, Diaz’s punches weren’t hard enough to truly trouble the Mexican veteran Marquez, who covered up and picked his shots.
Patiently, Marquez began to find the holes in Diaz’s defense that such a high volume approach invariably leaves and the 35 year old California resident began to zip in his own offense.
As the rounds wore on, Diaz’s attack began to falter, hastened by the increasingly numerous counters from Marquez, who while shaken at times by Diaz’s fire, knew the IBO titlist couldn’t hurt him.
Vicious two way trades broke out as Marquez began to match the output of Diaz and both fighters threw punches with abandon but by the eighth, the Texan was cut and beginning to wilt from the non-stop action of his efforts.
A tired Diaz proved to be a sitting duck for the accurate Mexican and a bracing combination from Marquez sent Diaz down hard. The college student made it up in time but was soon knocked unconscious by a crashing uppercut from Marquez, instantly ending the contest at 2:40 of the ninth round.
With yet another complete performance against a top notch opponent, Juan Manuel Marquez cements his status as a modern day great, capturing the WBA, WBO and IBO Lightweight titles and improving to 50-4-1 (37).
Juan Diaz, 34-2 (17), loses his second bout in three contests but remains a top class fighter who will likely regain a world title at lightweight after Marquez makes a rumored jump up to light welter.
On the undercard, WBA Featherweight Champion Chris John of Indonesia made his American debut by putting his title at risk against favorite local son Rocky Juarez, a two-time world super featherweight title challenger.
For the first half of the fight, John showed well why he was undefeated coming into the bout, expertly keeping the shorter and shorter-armed Juarez at the end of the jab.
As Juarez tried to close distance, he took increasing amounts of punishment from John, who rattled off machine-like combinations and more than replied to anything of substance the few times Juarez was able to land.
But all of Juarez’s pressure began to take its toll on the champion as John began to tire from the constant foot movement that had kept him out of range.
The eighth frame saw Juarez close the gap and begin find John’s body and the local man was able to trade on even terms with the champion for the first time in the ninth.
John got on his toes in the tenth but he could no longer beat Juarez to the punch when the Houston man got on the inside, feeling the power of Juarez’s superb short punches.
Juarez continued his success in the eleventh, shaking off John’s attempts to pick him off and handing the champion a vicious clattering on the ropes.
The challenger forced a brawl in the final round and got the better of John but Juarez couldn’t bring closure and the contest ended.
When the scores were read, John held onto his title for the tenth time when a draw was declared, 114-114 on all cards. The WBA Champion goes to 40-0-2 (22) while Juarez sees his record to 28-4-1 (20).
