Rafael Marquez vs. Silence Mabuza

[Rafael]

This is one of the best matchups of the last few months, and no doubt the real main event of Showtime's card next week. Rafa Marquez is one of the hardest punchers p4p today, and also a pretty decent boxer. His defense has some holes and he has also shown some vulnerability chin-wise in the past. Mabuza is a sweet boxer-puncher who throws fast and accurate combinations. However, I don't think he's slick enough to stay away from Marquez's power all night long. Cruz Carbajal, a much rawer guy than Marquez, was able to hit Mabuza more or less consistently when they fought for the number one spot a few months ago. Soooo, in my opinion, the key to the fight will be who can better take punches from the other guy, because they will hit each other (make no mistake about it!) Given the power factor, what I will be looking for as the key is how Mabuza reacts the first time Marquez hits him with a serious shot. In sum, a great little matchup that has received little to no attention by the heavyweight obsessed media. What's your take?

[GorDoom]

I consider Rafael to be a top ten P4P guy already. He's a tremendous puncher, good boxer & as exciting as hell. Not to mention having one punch KO power ...

He's already beaten Johnson (twice), once by KO & he also has Tim Austin & Mauricio Pastrana on his resume of victories. At this point I see Marquez slowly building an HOF level career.

I can hear the yelps already But he's been stopped! I see it this way I don't really hold early career missteps against an outstanding fighter on the rise.

For instance in his very first pro fight they threw him in against Victor Rabinales a former champ with over 50 fights. Rafael got stopped in his debut against the vastly more experienced Rabinales.

Scoffers out there say he has a weak chin, gimme a break, debuting against Rabinales was an outrageous choice by his management. If he made it through Johnson & Austin I've got no worries about his chin.

GorDoom

[BDeskins]

I really like Marquez too, but he certainly has a tough match with Mabuza, but I think Marquez will pull it out after some scary moments early to stop Mabuza in the seveth, or eighth round.

De La Hoya has one of the best cards of the last few years coming up with several smaller weight fighters. Jhonny Gonzalez, Daniel Ponce De Leon are both facing very good opponents and the other two bouts listed are very good as well.

[Rafael]

I guess I'll just have to start another "Big Klit" or "Little Klit" thread to get some responses.

>D

[The ORIGINAL Irish JQ]

I'm picking Mabuza to pull off the upset.

[dnahar]

I agree with Irish JQ and think Mabuza will upset Marquez.

I think it is unfair that boxing politics foced Mabuza to basically stop and restart his training and fly back and forth from South Africa to the USA. That said, I think those slights will motivate Silence and he did beat Cruz Carbajal in the US. Marquez has been relegated to undercard fights of PPVs and believes he deserves better (...and he does). Silence will be his toughest test in over 2 years (Feb 03 Tim Austin). Mabuza will outbox him and I don't think Marquez will land the big shot to turn it around. I'm going on the proverbial limb and picking Silence on points.

Deepak

[Dhalgren]

I'm picking Marquez, purely on the basis that fighters based in far-off countries generally don't tend to travel all that well. I do think Mabuza has a better chance than most though and on paper at least I'd say this fight is only 55-45 in Marquez's favour. I would only pick him because he is more of a known quantity, and Mabuza hasn't fought outside of Africa all that often (to my knowledge.) Should be a very good fight either way.

[StingerKarl]

I have Marquez here in a good battle, by TKO.
Karl

[TKO Tom]

I've never seen Mabuza fight, but in looking at his record it's not exactly a "Who's Who" of the prizering. I can't make a prediction because I've never seen Mabuza fight, but it'll take a helluva fighter to beat Marquez.

[StingerKarl]

Marquez will win Saturday Night.
I think he's better than Juan Manuel, and has tremendous left hand action.
Karl

[The ORIGINAL Irish JQ]

Rafael is a good fighter, but he's not better than Juan Manuel in my opinion.

Raffy has more power, obviously, but Juan Manuel is a much better boxer.

Ricardo Vargas, a tough guy but not world class level, was able to land clean against Rafael at times in their fight. Vargas even had Marquez stunned on more than one occasion.

Mabuza will outbox Marquez through the first half of the fight. Marquez will start to trade, sensing that he's losing the fight on the scorecards, and Mabuza will catch him with counters and win via TKO around the 9th-10th round.

[StingerKarl]

That scenario you (whoever you are using my OLD fightworld name) has as much possibilty happening as you do as of ever having laced up the gloves yourself, which is ZERO.
Bucket: Get in Touch with Me, ok?
Karl

[The ORIGINAL Irish JQ]

Why all the hostilities? I'm simply a boxing fan on a message board, voicing an opinion.

It's my opinion that Mabuza will beat Marquez on Saturday night. There are hundreds of thousands of different scenarios that could play out, that's just one possibility.

[BDeskins]

I disagree about Ricardo Vargas not being world class. I've saw him several times and when he is in shape and focused he is a very, very tough go for any fighter...ask Johnny Tapia...Vargas was putting all over him back when Tapia was Tapia and most of the losses in Vargas' career is either very close losses, or bum decisions that he should have won.

[Rafael]

Chapo Vargas has also beaten rising star Jhonny Gonzalez twice.

[The ORIGINAL Irish JQ]

Well, let me clarify. I meant that he wasn't "Championship material", let me put it that way.

He's a good, tough contender though. Tough as they come.

Hope that clears it up.

[GorDoom]

Silence Mabuza – There’s a storm brewing
by Deon Potgieter from Sweet Science

“Listen … just listen … do you know what that is? It’s the silence before the storm and there’s a big one coming.” These were the words used to introduce Silence Mabuza back in 2000 when he was voted Gauteng prospect of the year. I was on the panel which was given the duty of making the selections that year and even then it was very clear that Mabuza was no ordinary boxer. At that stage he’d only had 5 fights and had won them all by knockout, but he had an aura around him that said this was someone to watch. This was a potential champion.

Come Saturday night when Silence “African Spice” Mabuza, 18-0 (15), climbs into the ring to face Rafael Marquez; 34-3 (30), for the IBF bantamweight world title at Caesars Tahoe, there’s going to be a storm. This is not just a challenger trying to win a title. This is a man who believes he has a destiny to fulfill and will stop at nothing to achieve it. The fact that he’ll be facing a respected champion in Marquez will not detract him, instead in his mind it is the way it should be. For him to become a credible champion himself he needs to dethrone one.

It was early in 2001 at the SA boxing awards that I again had a chat with Mabuza along with South African boxing legend Andries Steyn. Steyn was one of the most talented local boxers to ever lace up a glove and many believe he would have claimed a lightweight world title had be been given the right opportunities. Steyn, also seeing the tremendous potential in the young man shared with him some advice about reading your opponent’s weaknesses and taking advantage of them. How warm it must have made Steyn’s heart when he saw Mabuza implementing those very things he had raised in his next few fights.

That’s another thing that makes this man special. He listens to what people have to say. Takes the good, discards the garbage, but he listens. No matter how he has risen through the ranks, he has kept that ability. In the early stages of his career he also shared the gym with Dingaan Thobela, and was in fact in his dressing room the night Thobela knocked out Glen “The Crybaby” Catley to win the WBC super middleweight world title. Thobela is known to acknowledge people and to listen respectfully and then to make up his own mind and it’s this same trait which Mabuza shares.

In his 8th pro bout Mabuza was matched against the national bantamweight champion Johannes Maisa in a non-title fight. At the time Maisa was 16-1 (11) and was regarded as the next big thing in the division and many thought he would be too experienced and too powerful for Mabuza. Ironically, that is the case again in Saturday’s fight.

The Maisa-Mabuza bout was a battle royal. Maisa was more experienced, better groomed, extremely confident and had the backing of Golden Gloves who promoted the fight. Mabuza had a corner who believed in him and a minority of boxing writers backing him. What he lacked, however, he made up with sheer guts and determination and a healthy dose of incredible natural talent.

The two noble warriors went toe to toe for the majority of an exciting ten round brawl. Mabuza was cut early on above his left eye, but this only fueled him on to fight back harder. Whenever Maisa landed, and he landed hard, Mabuza would come back and give him double back. The psychology of the fight could not have been better had it been scripted. Maisa gave and gave, but Mabuza did not only take it; he kept coming back; just kept coming back. The champion was the one on all cylinders early on, but in the end it was the battered and bruised Mabuza who stood tall. You could feel his courageous heart pounding through the cheers of those at ringside. Those who started the fight in favour of the champion, bar those who clung onto the hope that the decision would be spoiled by the judges, were soon washed over by the wave that had been generated in the middle of the ring.

Mabuza was a champion and nobody was going to take that away from him. Maisa put up a tremendous fight, but the fact was he could not stop his challenger from coming, could not sideline his desire to win; no matter how hard he tried, Mabuza soon started to crack him open from the inside out. This was a fight in which both combatants were willing to see how far they could take each other. They were playing chicken, but nobody was turning away or jumping off the track.

This was a collision and there would be only one winner. Bearing in mind that this was only Mabuza’s 8th pro contest, it was incredible to see him show the maturity to gut it out and to fight the fight. As I said, he lacked some experience – it showed at times – but there was something refreshing in his gutsy naivety in the ring and oh so beautiful. This man was born to be a champion. Following the fight I asked Mabuza about his bloody swollen left eye. It was almost completely closed and both his cheeks were swollen and there was blood on his teeth. “I couldn’t see on my left side so I knew I had to attack him,” replied Mabuza. “If I waited for him I wouldn’t have seen the punches so I took it to him and never gave him a chance to come back at me.”

This was for me the defining fight of Silence Mabuza. Since then he’s changed trainers and won the IBO bantamweight world title. He’s had 5 successful defenses including the IBF elimination against Cruz Carbajal, but all of those fights were merely practice sessions for the man. He’s never been extended as much as what he was in the Maisa fight. Some have been exciting affairs, but I always get the impression he’s just been honing his skills and doing the job while waiting for his destiny to arrive.

Some say he’s too arrogant in the ring, but, hey, weren’t all the great champions? The only weakness I detect going into this fight is that Mabuza could have been matched against tougher opponents during the grooming process. He has faced experienced, fast and ambitious men, but he has never faced the likes of Marquez. This is a test for Mabuza and it is one that he can pass. If the fight goes beyond five rounds, Mabuza will win. Some say there’s nothing more frightening than the silence before the storm ...

In other South African news Andre Thyse defeated Andile Tshongole to retain his national super middleweight title last Friday night in a boring 8 round stoppage which resembled a sparring session more than a fight. On Saturday Nkosani Joyi continued his fine form by knocking out Mawanda Sineko in the 6th round to retain his national flyweight crown for the fourth time. Joyi improves with every outing and is showing potential for the world stage.

[beddows]

Mabuza is unbeaten, and unbeaten fighters are impossible to judge...we don't know how good (or not so good) Mabuza will go on to be at this stage, especially as he's relatively untested. I've been reading some rave reports about him for some time, though. At nearly 2/1 on many betting sites, he must be worth a few quid.

[gregbeyer]

beddows..hello,
i have not seen mabuza. have heard enough about him from opinions i respect to think that at 2-1 you are right to risk a few quid on him.
greg

[beddows]

Hello Greg. Thanks again for the tapes. For anyone who's wondering: Greg kindly sent me two tapes laden with Mando Ramos action - his cracking fights with Sugar Ramos, Frankie Crawford and Yoshiaki Numata, and clips against so many others. Man, that guy had it all. I was born in 1963, so Ramos was a bit before my time and it was great to see someone I'd only ever read about (and Greg also included Pipino Cuevas at his peak; the guy was only about 19 when he was wreaking havoc on the world welterweight scene but looked, and punched, about 30).
As for Mabuza: his fights have often been reported in the British boxing weekly, Boxing News , and he is the South Africa's "Golden Boy", much in the way Mando was California's Golden Boy. It means he must have something special. Fans don't flock to see someone unless he can fight. But one thing I've noticed down the years, is that fighters going up for their first world title crack are often turned back, learn from it, and have much better luck second time (think of Ramos, Whitaker, Hagler, Norris, Chitalada, Azumah Nelson, Arguello, Cervantes, Canto, Pedroza, and Jung-Koo Chang, for examples).
Thus, I have a feeling Mabuza will come up short this time, and come back a better fighter.

[ShawnTheBleeder]

Steve Farhood called for Mabuza to pull the upset. Saturday is a rare treat, two great fights on the same card (televised, I mean). Enjoy it fellas.

Oh, Raf, I'm waiting with baited breath for that new Klit thread. (just kidding, of course)
Shawn

[StingerKarl]

beddows; IMO Marquez is better than his brother Juan Manuel, and is one of the best fighters in the world.
Marquez has some of the best left hand action I have seen in recent years, very educated and polished. This kid Mabuza must have a rave following, but what happens when he hits The Big Time? This isn't hometown fights against moderately tough, hand selected opponents, this is against one of The World's Best. I like your scenario that he comes up short, and I agree here.
Karl