Fighter Spotlight: Dee Marquez And The Long Way Around

Dee Marquez had a full amateur career, quit, and came back four years later better than she left.

The first run

Twelve amateur bouts out of a Fresno gym, mostly wins, and a schedule that finally collided with work and a kid. She stopped. She says she did not miss it for about eighteen months and then missed nothing else.

The return

She came back for fitness classes, not fighting. Somebody put her on mitts. Three weeks later she was sparring, and what everybody noticed was that the technique had not gone anywhere. Layoffs take your conditioning. They do not take your feet.

Style

Marquez is the best pure boxer we have. She fights at range, she resets constantly, and she is patient in a sport that punishes patience less than you would think. Her jab wins rounds by itself.

The bare-knuckle adjustment

She had to learn to stop leaning. In gloves you can eat a shot on the guard. Here that guard costs you a split hand. She spent most of her first camp relearning defense as movement rather than absorption.

What she says about it

She does not talk much about being one of the few women on Valley cards. Her line is that the crowd figures it out in about ninety seconds.

Next

She is on the spring card and she has asked for the toughest available opponent both times we offered her a choice. That tells you most of what you need to know.