Marquez quietly confident against Floyd Mayweather

LAS VEGAS (AP) — While Floyd Mayweather Jr. trashed their fight’s promoter and his uncle Roger ripped every other boxing trainer in the world, Juan Manuel Marquez made the biggest statement of fight week so far when he took the podium Wednesday and spoke in clear, confident English.

Marquez is a major underdog in Saturday’s comeback fight for the unbeaten Mayweather, yet the longest odds of the Mexican three-division champion’s career don’t seem to shake his growing confidence, both in front of cameras and in the ring. Although Marquez is solidly bilingual, he has rarely used English in public until recently.

“I feel as good and happy as I can,” Marquez said. “I always put forth the effort, and now I see the reward. I don’t want to be the Mexican No. 1 fighter. I want to be the global No. 1.”

With a huge payday awaiting him after the highest-profile bout of his career, Marquez (50-4-1, 37 KOs) might feel he has validation in a tumultuous career that has included frustrations and triumphs in almost equal numbers — most notably his failure to win two agonizingly close fights against Manny Pacquiao.

Marquez has spent much of his career with a chip on his shoulder from those bouts.

“He’s had some tremendous knockout fights, and he’s just beginning,” Oscar De La Hoya said of the 36-year-old Marquez. “He’s just getting started. We haven’t even seen everything Juan Manuel Marquez is capable of doing, and [Mayweather] is about to find out.”

Marquez got his biggest American exposure during the weeks leading up to the fight when he allowed HBO’s cameras into every aspect of his training camp near Mexico City for the network’s “24/7” series, which documented his unorthodox strength-training strategies — and his belief in urine recycling to restock his body with proteins and vitamins.

“I train very hard for each fight,” Marquez said. “I don’t like to drink. I don’t like to smoke. I don’t like to go to sleep late. And my style is different. I try not to get hit, and I try to be smart about what I do.”

Mayweather also seemed calm and mentally prepared for his first fight since December 2007, quietly answering questions one day after he made wide-ranging inferences about what he sees as America’s endemic racism limiting his stardom.

Yet while his uncle Roger boasted that every other boxing trainer can’t hold his heavy bag, Floyd Mayweather also took a little time to trash Oscar De La Hoya, whose Golden Boy Promotions is staging the bout. Mayweather says the Golden Boy is a “fake” who wants a rematch of their 2007 bout, won by Mayweather in a split decision.