Just using common sense, the older you get as a boxer your skills and power decrease. Very rarely do you see in boxing someone who is considered a good, but not great puncher become a one punch knockout artist overnight.
Even more rare is to see someone become a one punch knockout artist when they are moving up in weight at 39 years old, they knock out someone who hasn’t been KOed in 17 years and who they personally hadn’t even knocked down in 36 rounds of boxing.
But, that is what exactly happened with Juan Manuel Marquez. I believe in innocent until proven guilty, but before I give my opinion on what is going on with Marquez here is what he had to say about those who think he is on steroids.
“I am a clean fighter,” boxer Juan Manuel Marquez on Monday predicted his drug tests from the Nevada State Athletic Commission will come back negative.
“I feel very happy with my training, I feel great about the tests,” Marquez told the Los Angeles Times. “I won’t have a problem.”
Marquez told the Times he was annoyed by speculation that his body didn’t develop naturally “after working hard for four months in Mexico. If I continue fighting, I’d like to do Olympic-style anti-doping tests with my opponent.”
The #1 reason for the speculation besides the drastic body change was the fact that Marquez’s strength and conditioning coach is BALCO snitch Angel Hernandez. Hernandez once bragged about having over 20 undetectable steroids in his possession. Now, he says he is a changed man and trains athletes the proper way.
Marquez can be annoyed all he likes, but there are valid reasons why people would be suspicious. I have no doubt his tests will come back clean because they didn’t do Olympic Style Random Drug Testing for this fight. They just collected urine before and after, so it would be easy to come off any PEDs he was taking in preparation for the fight and still test clean.
I don’t know what Marquez was doing, but whatever it was in the last two fights against Pacquiao he has shown increase strength to the point that his KO of Pacquiao spawned a million Memes (which you can see here). Was it hard work or something else? Only Marquez knows the truth.