The first episode of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez 24/7 series aired Saturday evening on HBO before the Nonito Donaire vs. Omar Narvaez bout. It was a special inside glimpse to the rubbermatch of the series, and Pacquiao-Marquez 24/7 episode 1 brought us into the beginnings of the promotion and build-up to the fight. Take a look at a full recap of the episode right here.
The first episode of 24-7 Pacquiao-Marquez began with a look back, of course, on the first two bouts between these two boxing legends. Not only is it great to look back on those fights from years ago, it’s also astonishing to see how young and different both of the two men look back in their first encounter, particularly Pacquiao.
And now we’re at the official start of the first episode of Pacquiao-Marquez 24/7. We’re at Pacquiao’s gym in the Philippines and he’s beginning his 10-week training camp for the 59th professional fight of his career. Freddie Roach says that despite everything that Pacquiao does these days, he knows that boxing is what he does best. He also remembers what happened in those two previous encounters, so he isn’t taking this as a light assignment.
Freddie talks about how serious Pacquiao has taken this training camp right from the start. As such, he’s being the sparring partner for Jorge Linares, who at the time was still preparing for his lightweight title bout against Antonio DeMarco (he lost). Pacquiao talks about how facing Linares and his style helps him, and Linares says that it’s the best thing that ever happened to him, sparring with Pacquiao and being able to gain that experience.
Then we see some jokes as Pacquiao directs his team to be sparring and go at it with one another… and in his words… “The fight is terrible, man!” He says because it was such a disappointing much, it was a draw.
Now we’re 9,000 miles away in Mexico, and we’re moving to the camp of Juan Manuel Marquez in 24 7 Pacquiao-Marquez episode 1. Mexico City is the biggest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere, and it’s Marquez’s base camp. He has Nacho Beristain and the rest of his team there with him, and everyone has his own role.
Marquez says that the boxing community feels that Pacquiao is the best pound for pound fighter in the world, and that’s why he wants this fight. He knows he hasn’t lost to Pacquiao, and he needs to prove it to everyone else.
Beristain talks about the first fight and how it played out, and how Marquez came in too confident, and then got tagged. Then we see Freddie Roach chiming in and saying how when he saw Marquez go down, he thought it was over. Neither trainer had any idea what was coming next, and we see some great highlights from their first fight and all the back and forth action.
Marquez says that he knows, and the people know, that he won that fight. Pacquiao says that he knows he won the fight.
Then we move to the rematch, and we see some more highlights of the action that the two guys had there. Marquez caught him in the 2nd round, and then Marquez went down later, and of course, that eventually cost him the fight on the scorecards.
Roach says that he felt “his guy” did enough to win the fight, and we hear Larry Merchant say that he thinks they should call it another draw. Marquez says he thought he won by 2 or 3 points, and how a win over Pacquiao would have changed everything. For the record, and despite what they say in Pacquiao-Marquez 24 7 episode 1, the majority of neutral boxing observers feel that Marquez clearly won the fight on the scorecards.
Now, we’re back to real life, and Pacquiao has moved his training camp from the Philippines after 3 weeks to the Wild Card in Los Angeles. We see Manny working the mitts with Roach, jumping rope, hitting the heavy bag and so on, and he does look to be in great shape and to be dedicated already at the beginning of camp. Bob Arum is in town, and the focus is on Linares, and his fight against DeMarco on the undercard of the Hopkins vs. Dawson PPV.
Pacquiao sits ringside for the bout and everyone feels confident about his performance. Then he watches on in dismay as DeMarco comes on and begins busting up Linares. We see highlights of the bloody brawl, and eventually see DeMarco stopping him in the 11th round via TKO. A moving image is of Linares kneeled over in his corner dripping blood from his face. Then Pacquiao visits Linares in his dressing room and wishes him well and tells him about how it broke his heart what happened out there.
Now in 24-7 Pacquiao vs. Marquez episode 1, we move back to Marquez’s camp, and the focus is on Beristain. We hear about his history running his gym, training young kids right now that will eventually be the big names of the boxing world in the future, and more. His famous pupil Daniel Zaragoza’s nephew is one of his assistants in the gym, and he talks about how strict Beristain is in terms of what he wants in the gym, how he wants people to fight, and more.
Marquez is working hard in training camp, and Beristain says it’s going to be hard for his sparring partners, because he’s bringing it every day and 100% all the time. Marquez has also been sparring exclusively with southpaws and nothign else in preparation for this, and in his words, he knows that he has the style to bother Pacquiao and he’s confident in that.
Now we zoom in on Team Pacquiao and specifically, Alex Ariza. Pacquiao then talks about his legs and his cramping issue, and after the 2nd fight with Marquez, that’s why he hired Ariza to begin with. We see some footage of Pacquiao’s unique strength and conditioning program, and we hear Ariza say that Freddie told him to do whatever he wants, but don’t fuck up his speed.
And then here we are, and Pacquiao has continued to move up in weight and dominate bigger opponents. In the ring during training camp, Ariza says and Pacquiao agrees that he would have knocked out Marquez twice before if his leg wasn’t fucked up. Now, they’re confident that the Pacquiao of today is a “completely different person” and in Ariza’s words, Marquez doesn’t have a shot besides divine intervention, and he’d be surprised if the fight goes 3 rounds.
Now we’re back to Team Marquez and “Golpe a Golpe” or Blow by Blow, an ESPN Deportes show that Marquez appears on every week. It’s his last appearance on the weekly show before the fight, and then he’s out to a fancy dinner with his wife and children. They’re eating sushi – not all of them enthusiastically – and Marquez talks about how important it is to get that kind of quality time with them.
Then we see Marquez in the wee hours of the pitch black morning, and he’s at the track running laps. Then we switch to Pacquiao and he’s doing road work in the middle of the night. It’s been 7 years since their first encounter, and 3 years since their last encounter, and now it’s just 3 weeks until their next encounter. Legacies of boxers are decided by just a few nights of their lives and now they have another night that means everything.
Roach says that another close decision won’t be satisfying. Manny needs to knock him out, shut him up and close the book on this…. and then Pacquiao-Marquez 24-7 episode 1 comes to a close. We also hear about a special series coming up in January 2012 focused just on Roach and what he has accomplished as a trainer, battling through Parikson’s.
Thanks for checking out our Pacquiao vs. Marquez 24/7 episode 1 recap right here on ProBoxing-Fans.com, and keep on checking back with the site for more updates on the fight over the next month.
