MANILA, Philippines – Mexican boxer Juan Manuel Marquez is dead serious in his intent to beat Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao in their fourth face-off this December.
During a recent sparring session, the 39-year-old Marquez knocked down sparring partner Daniel "Rocky" Santillo with a right cross to the face.
Santillo has a record of 4-1 with 4 knockout wins.
The session was done in front of several media people with Marquez apparently showing the crowd what they should expect in his December 8 bout with Pacquiao.
Marquez, who has lost two controversial decisions to Pacquiao, has repeatedly voiced out how much he wanted to knockout the Filipino.
"This fight, I'm training very, very hard. This fight, I will try to knock out Manny Pacquiao," said the Mexican counterpuncher in RingTV.
"There is no way that I can let this fight be a decision, because if I do, everyone knows what will happen. That's because the judges aren't doing their jobs, so I need to train very hard to get the knockout."
Pacquiao himself wants a decisive win against his Mexican nemesis to wipe out the controversy of his past victories.
He said he plans to force Marquez in a toe-to-toe battle where he can use his punching power to his full advantage.
“Never mind his counterpunching tactics, which he proved very effective in our previous fights. Mapapag-aralan na natin ‘yun,” Pacquiao said earlier. “Ang mahirap kasi how can we lure him into coming out and slug it out.”
His conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, will be introducing new methods of training to help Pacquiao execute his plans.
Ariza told Philboxing’s Ronnie Nathanielsz that they plan "to introduce new things [to Pacquiao] next week."