You would be hard-pressed to find a fight fan in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metorplex who doesn’t believe that Oak Cliff’s Roberto Marroquin is destined to win a major title at some point in his career. In the current hierarchy of North Texas based fighters Marroquin is without a doubt the one fighter who has managed to resonate to some tangible degree with fight fans on a national level. Promoted by boxing powerhouse Top Rank, Marroquin has been prominently featured on a number of major fight cards.
But, despite enjoying a meteoric rise over the course of his career it’s a bit perplexing that the general hype regarding Marroquin has cooled somewhat in the wake of his first, and only, professional loss this past April to Francisco Leal. It’s the great double standard applied to talented pugilists. Go undefeated and people will begin to question who a fighter has fought. Lose a competitive bout and all of a sudden people are in a hurray to declare the fighter an exposed fraud. Hell, it’s a no-win situation for a fighter and unfortunately, Marroquin has had to be subject to hushed whispers from his detractors. It’s unfair to levy such expectation and hope on any fighter but like it or not, that is the fight game.
Marroquin has managed to bounce back from his first loss, winning convincingly against two serviceable opponents. The most recent example was Marroquin’s whitewashing of Carlos Valcarcel this past weekend where he headlined the “Top Rank Live” card televised on Fox Sports Net. While that in itself is a great accomplishment one can’t help but think that 2012 should be the year that Marroquin makes the leap from talented regional attraction to bonafide title contender.
To hear both Marroquin and his promoter tell it, time is on their side. True, Marroquin is only 22 and despite having a glossy record of 21-1 the humble young fighter still has some technical holes that he needs to work on in order to become a complete fighter. But even at such a young age, relatively speaking, one can hope that Top Rank will begin to work to get Marroquin on some bigger stages. A fighter of Marroquin’s level should be a staple on ESPN, or, better yet ShoBox.
2012 brings with it a lot of hope and promise and for a fighter standing on the precipice of a title shot, fans of Marroquin can only hope that the new year brings a new champion to North Texas.
Photo by Stacey Verbeek
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