Enjoy.
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JMM: Thank you for having me. I think the first point worth noting is the great preparation we had. We had a new team, new doctors, a new physical preparation. Apart from that, in the end what everyone saw last Saturday is to be a plain robbery. I think it was very sad, a grand disillusionment, knowing that you’ve won the fight-in this case, us, the team, and me personally-knowing that we won the fight, and when they announce the decision- well, it gives you something to think about, it fills you full of rage, and you don’t even know what to do or who to revenge. I still haven’t decided; I still haven’t discussed with my family. I haven’t even had the time or the opportunity to discuss with them, but…I’ve put everything on the scale (weighed everything out). There are five fights which they have robbed me disgracefully. In this one, another time would be the fourth; and for the same thing to happen? What would happen? I think it would be the worst thing that could happen in my career, so I’d have to take a correct decision, a drastic (definite) decision, whether we keep going or whether we don’t. But I keep maintaining the position that I can retire, or I can discuss with my family or discuss with my team, and make a drastic decision on whether we continue or not.
Interview: If it’s not Manny Pacquiao, with whom does Juan Manuel Marquez return?
JMM: If it’s not with him, it’s with nobody else. I’ll retire.
One of the principal conditions is that the fight isn’t in Las Vegas again. Two, that the fight be made with neutral judges, through an organization or to choose one Mexican judge, one Filipino Judge, and a neutral judge, and if need be to get a fourth judge to be supervising; a judge who has been dedicating his whole life to this sport, so that there are no doubts; and afterwards, looking at the economic, which in this situation is important, so that it works out well for us as well. Everyone here has swollen feet in their shoes (an expression meaning they are sore or worn) from however many blows there were, but we walk away not with a horrible amount, but not exactly what one would think.
I think what we saw this past Saturday was something atrocious; something that, truly, damaged the prestige of this sport, and as I said in some interviews the morning of today, I said, the sport, boxing, doesn’t bear the blame. The blame falls on the people who make it go round. There are people behind this sport who I love very much; there are judges, there are presidents of organizations; there are many people who control the sport that ruin it.
I would also love to have, as they do in American Football, that when there is a doubtful call, they go to the replay. I think that that would be very good; a hit, a fall, a slip, or whatever. And it would be too to have a fourth judge; a fourth judge that has a monitor right by him with replays with the 3 minutes of every round, so that he can qualify every round with his score. He can have one minute of rest, and he can also be revising his score in that minute, quickly or maybe at a higher speed, and keep qualifying so you can go in real time. Have that fourth judge, and then collect and compare, and then go with the decision of the fourth judge, but with comparing and qualifying the scores of the rest of them.
The 12th of November, we worked with intelligence, we worked with speed, counter-punches, lateral steps, all of the experience I have in this sport, and it complicated it for him. It was like that the whole fight; he didn’t even know what to do. So, they had asked me, “are you going to change your strategy?”, and I’d say “no, we’re going to shape the strategy as the rounds pass; as he adjusts, I adjust”, and that’s how I always handle it; in every fight, see what the opponent is doing, and keep ad******g, keep ad******g what you have to do, what you have to not do…so with the opponent, it’s round-by-round.
Possibly, the desire to cook up the fight with Floyd Mayweather , the bets, influenced everything, everything. I think that here, even Bob Arum realized it. I went up to the press conference, and Bob Arum said to me “It’s business.” What does that make you think?” I could have given him a huge smack (studio laughs)… the truth, the truth is I’m a person who shows respect, an educated (in Spanish meaning well-mannered) person, but it gave me the nerve to want to say “Yea? It’s Business? Let’s see how well your business goes for you now.” But if you have the nerve to say “it’s business”... sure, you take care of your business, but who looks after my efforts? My 18 years of career? The hopes of beating the supposed “best pound-for-pound”? It’s because of these things that I want to say “let me retire from this sport”, which I love a lot, but this is disgusting. “Business is business, but you can go fuck yourself”; that doesn’t work.
I love politics and I love being always being into something, and how they say “speaking of religion and politics is to bring up something that never ends”, but I like it. Why do I like it? Because there are times that we see people who want to help, and times we see people who want to help themselves; not help, but help themselves. And it would please me at some point if I could get into it and get involved with politics; to help and do something for the people, in the sport or just here on our planet Earth, to know that bad people exist but good people exist also.
It wouldn’t be so drastic as to say “I’m not a boxer anymore, now I’m a politician”; no no no. Here it’s a question of seeing, analyzing, putting everything on the scale, whether I continue or not; so the first decision is whether or not we continue in the sport, and from there see what we do, and in what I’m going to dedicate a future, because there’s no sport, or no career, that lasts forever, and I think I’m I my last stage and I have to see what I’m going to dedicate myself to; what I’m going to live for; so that I don’t turn into a little old man, what I’m going to dedicate myself to and be distracted by…because one way or another, everyone knows that when someone doesn’t dedicate themselves to doing anything, in their house without knowing what to do, their years pass over them like water and old age comes suddenly; and I don’t want that to happen to me. I’ll dedicate myself to something.
