Marquez vs. Alvarado: Marquez wants to focus on speed, says Alvarado will be dangerous

Juan Manuel Marquez knows a lot is riding on his upcoming fight with Mike Alvarado on May 17. A win almost surely nets him a rematch with the winner of the Manny Pacquiao - Timothy Bradley fight that takes place in April. So it comes as no surprise that he claims he will enter the fight with his usual high-quality preparation (with minor tweaks) and focus, and insists that Alvarado will do the same.

According to Boxing Scene's Salvador Rodriguez, Marquez feels that he needs to lean more toward speed and power in his training camp. He also claims that he may have overtrained for the Bradley fight, and wants to scale it down.

"Perhaps less sparring, and focus more on speed and power at this point in my career," Marquez said. "I'm the type of fighter who likes to prepare myself for three months or three and a half months, but in the last fight it didn't work for us in terms of what we wanted in speed and power, and that's why this time we are going to train less.

"Alvarado is going to be dangerous during the entire duration of the fight. He lost to great fighters and he wants to return to a winning path, because another defeat will bring him closer to retirement. So of course he is going to press, then he is going to box, and he is going to want to counterpunch, but we are going to prepare ourselves for whatever he wants to do."

I thought Marquez looked the same as always against Bradley. Maybe you could argue a little slower but that could just as easily be attributed to age and the fact that Bradley is a very good athlete in his own right. Marquez tends to struggle more with guys who don't come at him. He's a natural counterpuncher, and Bradley messed with his timing quite a bit.

Will Alvarado try to box and move like he did in his Brandon Rios rematch? Probably some, but it remains to be seen if he can have the same success as Bradley who is faster than Alvarado.