Skills(criminally underrated), movement, intelligence, speed, power, iron will, punch resistance and many more I'm surely forgetting. Barrera is an ATG.
This. What makes a great is they dare to fight other top fighters when they're not shot wrecks (Hamed IMHO was, but I'll forgive that) and they're competitive at that level - sure, he didn't win them all but he was competitive.
hes a real fighter. even if he wasnt a boxer, he would still be a guy not to be ****ed with. cause he will come off the porch for you. just like his nemesis, morales. i see that same spirit in guys like ortiz, taylor, inoue, etc...game dudes, not just athletes flexing on guys they can whoop.
Barrera was special in that he completely altered his style. He early on was known for getting into wars like the McKinney fight, he was then winning on his speed, aggression, work rate and will to win. But later after the Jones and Morales losses he started to slowly reinvent himself and continually make small improvements until we saw him out class Hamed. That ability to reinvent himself and keep evolving and learning from each loss is what made him special.
True his hand speed was impressive, especially in combinations, I recall when he came to the UK and wrecked Wenton and Lloyd and thinking how quick his hands were and that Hamed didn't necessarily have much of an advantage in speed.
TBF Hamed was basically shot at that point, but MAB was still classy and won comfortably - prime Vs prime IMHO would've been much closer.
Agreed Hamed by then was a shadow of his former self. He was mentally shot as his focus seemed to be more on the pageantry on being champion than the actual day to day grind of what it took to get there. Stylistically without Ingle he'd transformed from being an awkward counter puncher who used his bizarre defence to create openings to counter but in against fighters like McCollough he would just leap in relying on his speed to beat his opponents to the punch instead of putting the work into create openings by forcing mistakes. Though personally I think Barrera was always the better fighter. Barerra physically looked a division bigger than Hamed, his hand speed which I do think is underrated by some wasn't far off Hamed's and that jab of his even gave JMM all kinds of problems when they fought so against Hamed who as a southpaw with a low guard would always get out jabbed as Barrera's jab would always go over his and block Hamed's rising jab.
True, but he was also struggling to make weight and struggling with hand injuries - for a guy who relies on clowning his opponent until they're ripe for KO, it's a devastating decline physically as well.
