Juan Manuel Marquez retained his WBA and WBO lightweight titles with a unanimous decision victory over American Juan Diaz Saturday before demanding a third fight with Manny Pacquiao. The Mexican drew with the Filipino in 2004 and suffered a narrow defeat four years later but will hope to come away with a victory if they meet for a third time. “The trilogy with Pacquiao is what I want,” said Marquez, 51-5-1, (37 KOs). “Everybody wants to see it. It's good for all fight fans, for the Mexicans, the Filipinos.” The fight with Diaz was a rematch of a February 2009 contest, in which Diaz set the pace early before Marquez took control and scored a knockout in the eighth round. There were no knockdowns this time, but on several occasions Marquez appeared to hurt Diaz with sharp combinations. He landed more than Diaz in every one of the twelve rounds and in total scored with 288 punches, 133 more than his opponent. Diaz, 35-4 (17 KOs) said he had intended to set a more measured pace than in the previous encounter, but that Marquez had thwarted his plans. Diaz showed remarkable stamina and courage against one of boxing's most punishing fighters. The University of Houston graduate and aspiring lawyer was sharp again – just not sharp enough to beat arguably the most accomplished Mexican fighter of his generation. “I fought the best fight I could,” Diaz said. “We were trading punches. We fought in, we fought out. I didn't stand in front of him. I wanted to get in there and then get out, but it was hard, and I got hit with a couple of good shots. ... I did the best I could. I followed the game plan, worked off my jab, but he's a great fighter.” Judge Jerry Roth favored Marquez 116-112, while Glenn Trowbridge scored it 118-110 and Patricia Morse Jarman had it 117-111. Marquez landed 288 punches to Diaz's 155, outlanding Diaz in every round, according to CompuBox's statistics. Marquez connected with nearly 50 percent of his power punches, landing 168 to Diaz's 74. On the stacked undercard, unheralded Russian middleweight Dmitry Pirog stopped Daniel Jacobs with a crushing overhand right to win the vacant WBO title. Robert Guerrero comfortably outpointed Cuban veteran Joel Casamayor, and Jorge Linares easily beat Rocky Juarez.
