Who has a better resume, Erik Morales or Marco Antonio Barrera?

Morales just by a little

 

Me neither, I like Marquez but without Pacquiao his legacy takes a big hit and Morales also has Pacquiao.

 

Marquez clearly won that fight..did you forget the score cards?

 

I’ve always preferred Erik, but Barrera was right there with him and has the head to head advantage. Marco clowning Hamed was epic, Morales coming out as a southpaw in the 12th against Pac was gangster. Even at the time I knew, but especially in retrospect, that was a golden age of boxing.
I forget now who he fought last, either Danny Garcia or Maidana, Erik also gets points for taking him into deep water. Even with his eye swelled hideously shut, Erik showed he wasn’t going to be a “name” on some young buck’s resume.

 

Morales for me, plus he had a better career especially in his later years. No way was he a real 140 pounder but he competed against both a Prime Maidana and Swift Garcia in the first fight. I really do wish the Mathysse fight would have happened though. Imagine how good a fight that would have been.

 

It's damn close, you can make and argument for both.

Morales has the best win, over a version of Pac that beat Barrera, though he did go onto lose badly in the 2nd and 3rd fights, though against an improved version of Pac. But remember than improved version of Pac couldn't repeat what he did in the first fight against Barrera and was taken the distance in the 2nd fight with Barrera, albeit in a one sided affair, but still better than Morales did in those rematches.

Barrera also beat Morales in their trilogy, has a very good win over Hamed too which at the time was just as big if not bigger than Morales beating Pac, though in hindsight Pac is clearly the better win.

I think Barrera overall was the more complete fighter, the fact he won the trilogy, did better than Morales did in the rematches with Pac despite doing so badly in the first fight shows he was more adaptable than Morales. But then Morales had his height and reach, that good right hand and while both were warriors at heart, Morales to me also had more spite in his nature, he had a chip on his shoulder that made him nasty in a way Barrera for me lacked, that was a boon and a curse in some ways as it make Morales ferocious in combat but also prone to getting into brawls too often.

Personally I favour Barrera by the thinnest of margins. I just felt at the time, Barrera for the majority of the time was seen as the better fighter, the result of the first fight was controversial because most thought Barrera won, then Barrera beat Hamed which put Barrera on another level in terms of P4P rankings. Then Barrera won the rematch but again controversially so even then they were 1-1 in most peoples eyes but Barrera still had the Hamed win to put him over Morales. Then of course Barrera was crushed by Pac and Morales surprised people by beating Pac and for a very short time, a period of 6 months Morales indeed was the King until he lost to Raheem and then Pacquiao twice, so while he did beat Pac he lost the fight before that and then the next 4 fights after that. It was a tremendous win, his best win in fact but during perhaps the worst period of Morales career. It was a case of Icarus flying too close to the sun and getting burned.

 

Barrera but I'm biased.

 

I give it slightly to Barrera

 

I was at the fight, had my money on MAB, thought I'd won but went home broke

 

Eh, fairly predictable that people are going to make the shallow assessment that it's clearly Morales. Somewhat understandably, with the huge h2h victories over Pac and Barrera himself and then a solid second string of In Jin Chi, Kelley, Jones, and Famoso to boot.

As far as depth of quality, though? Not just the uncontextualized fact of capturing titles in more weight divisions.

Let's look at my breakdown of MAB's career:
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/the-marco-antonio-barrera-super-thread.514025/

If you go 17 wins deep for EM there's going to be a massive drop-off after about half a dozen where there's just no comparison to equivalent slots on Barrera's side. If you were to assign points values on a scale of one to ten, yeah he might get a good headstart with Pacquiao but in the final analysis I think Barrera's going to rack up the higher score overall. (remember, some of Morales' better ones are repeats of Barrera's)

 

Morales did beat a guy who beat a guy who beat a prime pacquiao. You gotta factor that in.

 

I like to put them dead even. Both atgs at featherweight in the same time frame. Heck their fights with each other are razor thin splits. My uncle was watching mab vs morales and said "this will probably be better than the main event" mind you it was a replay, as a fight of that magnitude warrants a prime time time slot, all 3 bouts deserved to be main events!

 

Oh, you know I can't follow all of that, Glove.

 

Morales had a bit of mongrel about him, even though he didn’t look it. He was like violent, heart, will wrapped in a fragile looking outside.