Marquez eyes featherweight dominance

Dean Juipe

Thursday, July 31, 2003 | 9:27 a.m.

Six months after winning his first world championship, Juan Manuel Marquez will look to add another when he faces fellow champion Derrick Gainer in a unification fight at 126 pounds.

Marquez and Gainer will meet Aug. 16 in Uncasville, Conn., and headline a card to be televised by HBO.

Marquez, 29, won the International Boxing Federation featherweight title Feb. 1 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, stopping Manuel Medina at 1:18 of the seventh round.

Gainer, 30, is the World Boxing Association featherweight champion and is coming off a controversial split-decision victory against Oscar Leon April 12 in Las Vegas.

"I'm going to be aggressive and take out Marquez by the eighth round," Gainer predicted during a conference call with each fighter.

"That's just fight talk," Marquez responded.

Marquez is 40-2 and Gainer is 37-5-1.

By edict of the WBA, Gainer was to have granted Leon an immediate rematch, but the organization relented when the unification fight with Marquez was proposed.

"My goal is to win every round of the fight," Marquez said. "I beat a tough champion in Medina, who just beat Scott Harrison.

"So, a win over Gainer will establish me as the world's best featherweight."

That claim deserves an asterisk, however, in that Marco Antonio Barrera is generally perceived as the world's top featherweight even though he does not own one of the three major titles. The third featherweight champion, Erik Morales of the World Boxing Council, is vacating his title and leaving the division to fight Guty Espadas at 130 pounds Oct. 4 in L.A..

"I will consider going up in weight and fighting Morales," Marquez said of his plans if all goes as he hopes.