Juan Manuel Marquez Drills Likar Ramos, Moves On to Manny Pacquiao

Juan Manuel Marquez made quick work of lousy Colombian club fighter Likar Ramos tonight in Cancun, knocking Ramos out in 47 seconds with a straight right hand to move on to his November 12 trilogy fight with Manny Pacquiao.

Marquez (53-5-1, 39 KO) was never going to lose this fight, the only concern being a potential injury. But a right hand caught Ramos (24-4, 18 KO) and knocked him flat out, though many are questioning the validity of the knockout, and some suspect one of two things:

1. A fix was in. I disagree.
2. Ramos went ahead and played dead, wanting nothing to do with Marquez. This I could imagine being feasible, to be honest.

Let's be very clear: Ramos, despite his fairly OK-looking record, is really, really bad. He wasn't even in Marquez's universe, and this fight was a terrible matchup. Ramos cannot fight. When he fought Jorge Solis, he was demolished, and forgive me, but Jorge Solis is no Juan Manuel Marquez.

What I think we saw here was a top five pound-for-pound fighter against a bad Colombian club fighter. I wouldn't expect Ramos to win many Friday Night Fights co-feature fights, either, to be honest. He's truly not a good fighter, and his charity interim belt at 130 pounds was a farce. He was not in any way other than injury or cuts a dangerous proposition for Marquez, who could flatten a lot of guys who are probably five times better than Ramos.

If that sounds like I'm being harsh, it should. But the reality is that Marquez got in a training camp, which means he won't have a full year off before facing Pacquiao in November. That's all this fight was about. It was more about camp than about the fight itself. I don't think it was a "fix" or a true dive -- as in, I don't think Marquez had the knowledge that Ramos was going down in 47 seconds -- but no, I would not truthfully be surprised if Ramos just decided that it was pointless to go on, and he cashed his check and went home as soon as he was thumped with a good shot, and it was a good shot.

We thank you for joining us tonight, and thank Top Rank for what was a truly exceptional stream tonight. With their streaming improved, we can all now genuinely look forward to off-TV undercards and things of that nature in the future. They did a great job upgrading their service with this card.