By David Martinez / Boxing Historian

This past weekend, I witnessed simply the best lightweight championship fight I have seen since Corrales vs. Castillo, May 7, 2005; and certainly this is my fight of the year thus far for 2009.

Juan Manuel Marquez scored a spectacular 9th round knockout over Juan Diaz to win the vacant WBA and WBO titles, and retained his lineal and Ring Magazine championship belt.

From the start to finish, this fight was nothing less than pure non-stop action by both fighters. The younger Diaz, with his aggression in the early rounds simply out punched Marquez. As the middle rounds came, Marquez began to bleed on his right eye as Diaz continued to move forward with his relentless attack.

I gave most of the rounds up to the 7th to the “Baby Bull” Diaz, but something happened in the 8th round that would spark Marquez. With both fighters cut, the veteran Marquez threw a huge right hand followed by a left uppercut that staggered Diaz as that round ended, putting Diaz on shaky ground.

As round nine began, it was Marquez, the 35 year old fighter, that seemed to take control over Diaz; he dropped him, which proved to be the beginning of the end for the 25 year old Diaz. After that knockdown, Diaz continued to move forward, instead of retreating, to hang on, as Marquez threw a perfect right upper cut at 2:40 of that round for the knockout win.

This fight was one for the ages, and I will go on record to say that Juan Manuel Marquez has to rank with any of the best Mexican born boxers ever – he is that good!

In the co-feature, Chris John salvaged a 12 round draw to retain his WBA Featherweight title over Rocky Juarez. All the official judges at ringside had identical scorecards of 114-114. I personally thought that the HBO scorecard of Harold Lederman was most accurate in having John winning convincingly 116-112.