By Ronnie Nathanielsz

WBC lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez’s so-called tune-up ten round bout against former WBA Interim champion Likar Ramos of Colombia turned out to be a farce with Marquez scoring a knockout in 47 seconds of the very first round in Cancun, Mexico.

If Marquez was looking to get a workout before his much-awaited trilogy against pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao he obviously picked the wrong opponent as the Colombian was knocked out cold by a single right straight.

It was clear that Marquez (53-5-1, 39 KO’s), with his biggest payday ahead of him against Pacquiao, wasn’t going to lose to Ramos ( 24-4, 18 KO’s) but nobody expected the fight to end so quickly, possibly even Marquez himself unless he was looking to make a statement for Pacquiao’s benefit..

Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza said “there is no way he can scare Manny. He doesn’t fear anybody. Most kids have no fear factor but grow into it later on. Manny never got it. If they expect to scare Manny that’s not going to happen.”

Ariza told BoxingScene.com/Daily Inquirer “ I didn’t expect them to take a risk. They just wanted Marquez to stay in the gym.”

Ramos is the same fighter who lost his title in a 7th round demolition by Jorge Solis who had also been knocked out by Pacquiao and was clearly not in the league of Marquez. Against Solis, Ramos was dropped a total of three times in rounds three, six and seven on February 6, 2010.

Boxing writer Scott Christ said fans watched a top five pound-for-pound fighter in Marquez against “a bad Colombian club fighter. He is truly not a good fighter and his charity interim belt at 130 pounds was a farce.”

The consensus was that Ramos decided there was no point in trying to beat the count and continue and therefore decided to take his money and go home.