Guest
Guest
 | | Subject: Toshiaki Nishioka vs Rafael Marquez set for Oct 1st Fri Jul 29, 2011 6:56 pm | |
| - Quote :
- Rafael Marquez held the junior featherweight championship for only five months in 2007, but the time sure was memorable.
That's because he stopped Israel Vazquez in the seventh round of their all-time-great first fight to win the title. They would fight four times total, with the series ending 2-2. Three of their bouts were contested for the junior featherweight title, before the final chapter in 2010 came at featherweight.
Although Vazquez defeated Marquez in the second and third fights -- named fight of the year in 2007 and 2008, respectively -- Marquez will always be remembered for their first three classics and the excitement they created at 122 pounds.
Now Marquez, also the former bantamweight champion, will get another chance to claim a belt at junior featherweight. He'll challenge Japan's Toshiaki Nishioka (38-4-3, 24 KOs), who will come to Las Vegas to make his seventh defense against Marquez (40-6, 36 KOs) on Oct. 1 in a ballroom at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Marquez, 36, is back at junior featherweight after a rough go in his last fight at featherweight. The younger brother of lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez challenged then-featherweight titlist Juan Manuel Lopez in November 2010 and didn't answer the bell for the ninth round because of a shoulder injury. It knocked him out of action for eight months before he returned on his brother's July 16 undercard in Cancun, Mexico.
Rafael Marquez dropped back to junior featherweight for that bout, dominating journeyman Eduardo Becerril for a sixth-round TKO to set him up for the shot at Nishioka.
"I believe that I can not only go back down in weight to 122, but will be successful again," Marquez said. "This is a good opportunity for me, and I will take advantage of it.
"This is a very tough fight against Nishioka, and I will need to be at my best. I will train very hard in Mexico City, and the fact that the fight is in Las Vegas [instead of Japan] will be to my advantage."
Top Rank is assisting top Japanese promoter Akihiko Honda of Teiken Boxing, which promotes Nishioka, with putting on the card in the United States. The card is being presented in honor of Japanese premium cable network WOWOW's 20th anniversary of televising top boxing matches from around the world. Its broadcast team is a staple at ringside for the biggest fights in Las Vegas and also will televise this card in Japan. WOWOW also regularly televises Top Rank bouts as part of an output deal with the company.
"They wanted to do a fight from Las Vegas and WOWOW is a good customer of ours, so we are doing the fight with them and helping out Mr. Honda," Top Rank president Todd duBoef said.
Also on the card: Junior flyweight titlist Roman Gonzalez (29-0, 24 KOs) will defend against an opponent to be determined. He retained his title with a seventh-round knockout of Omar Salado on the same July 16 card the Marquez brothers fought on.
DuBoef said the American broadcaster for the card is still undetermined. He said it could be a pay-per-view or run as an edition of "Top Rank Live" on Fox Deportes.
"I'm holding a pay-per-view date to do a 'Latin Fury' show, but obviously 'Top Rank Live' would make sense if we can make that work economically," duBoef said. "I'm weighing everything now."
DuBoef said that the winner of Nishioka-Marquez could be a potential opponent for Top Rank-promoted bantamweight star Nonito Donaire, who figures to give up his belts within the next couple of fights to seek a title at 122 pounds.
"It sets up the Nishioka-Marquez winner to be in the Donaire equation when he goes up to 122," duBoef said. "Donaire and Marquez is a helluva fight, isn't it? And Nishioka can punch, too."
Nishioka has won 15 consecutive fights since losing a decision when challenging then-bantamweight titlist Veerapol Sahaprom in 2004.
If Nishioka, 35, defeats Marquez, he would become the first Japanese fighter to successfully defend his title in the United States. Two others have attempted it and failed: Akifumi Shimoda, who was knocked out by Rico Ramos in the seventh round to lose his version of the junior featherweight title July 9 in Atlantic City, N.J.; and junior lightweight titlist Kuniaki Shibata, who lost his belt to Ben Villaflor via first-round knockout in Hawaii in a 1973 rematch http://espn.go.com/boxing/story/_/id/6815509/rafael-marquez-back-more-junior-featherweight |
|
