By Miguel Rivera
Nacho Beristain, the career-long trainer of former four division world champion Juan Manuel Marquez (56-7-1, 40 KOs), was very sad to see his fighter walk away from the sport.
Nacho had been pressing Marquez, nearly 44 years old, to retire from boxing.
But Marquez, inactive since May of 2014, continued to train for a potential ring return.
On Friday, Marquez officially announced his retirement from the sport.
"He spoke to me very calmly but I did feel a touch of sadness and I was very pleased because I was waiting for some time [for Marquez to retire]. I did not like to see him make an effort to get to the weight. But he showed me that here in this ring that he was a complete athlete because he was training for four weeks and was fighting with welterweights," Nacho told ESPN Deportes.
"I am completely proud to have been his coach from the beginning of his career to the very end, for his discipline, his character, for being a great fighter and a great friend."
The biggest win of Marquez's career was certainly his sixth round knockout of Manny Pacquiao from the fall of 2012 - which as the fourth meeting between the two fighters.
Marquez was in serious trouble during the sixth, but in the closing seconds Pacquiao jumped in to land a combination and Marquez caught him cold with a perfect counter that sent the Filipino superstar crashing to the mat, face first.
"We worked hard together with the physical trainer (Memo) Heredia and that gave him the physical strength and explosiveness to get him the right speed to be able to catch [Pacquiao] with that counter. But we worked a lot, so I was a little annoyed because some of the major boxing people said that it was a stroke of luck and lucky shots only exist in the movies," Nacho said.
2023-10-19 03:41:11
