Marquez vs. Katsidis Live on November 27th, in Las Vegas

WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (51-5-1, 37 KO’s) has accepted terms to fight WBO lightweight interim champion Michael Katsidis (27-2, 22 KO’s) on November 27th, in a fight that will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada. The bout will almost surely be shown on HBO, as this fight has the making of an epic slugfest. Marquez, 37, had been thinking of moving up to the light welterweight division and challenging World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan, but Marquez has put that fight off for now so that he can defend his title against one of the most exciting fighters in the lightweight division in 30-year-old Australian Katsidis.

Marquez was hoping to get a third fight with Manny Pacquiao. However, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank thinks that Marquez needs to prove himself against welterweights before he’ll consider putting Pacquiao in with him. It could be that Arum is concerned about Marquez possibly beating Pacquiao, because he seemed to have his number in the two prior fights he had with Pacquiao in 2004 and 2008. Marquez does really well against Pacquiao’s brawling style of fighting for some reason.

Marquez is coming off of an impressive 12 round unanimous decision against Juan Diaz on July 31st. It was the second time that Marquez had beaten Diaz. This time, however, Diaz was less aggressive and looked to be pacing himself so that he wouldn’t get knocked out again. It worked but Diaz still ended up losing.

Katsidis looked sensational in taking out Britain’s Kevin Mitchell in a 3rd round stoppage in May. Katsidis came into Upton Park facing an unfriendly large pro-Mitchell audience. However, instead of getting psyched out by the huge crowd, Katsidis seemed to be energized as he came out fast and overpowered Mitchell and stopped him in the 3rd. Katsidis may have the power and the work rate to give Marquez a lot of problems. Marquez faded against Diaz in their second fight and if Katsidis can start off at a faster pace, and make the older Marquez work really hard, he could end up winning a decision. He won’t knock Marquez out, because Marquez has a great chin, but he could wear him down enough to win on points. This is going to be a really tough fight for Marquez because Katsidis is a lot more active than Diaz and has better power as well. He could make Marquez look old like Floyd Mayweather Jr. did last year on his one-sided 12 round unanimous decision over Marquez in September 2009.

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