Chris John is Average

First off, I'd like to state that John won the Juarez fight on my card, rather clearly.

Secondly, the man is a world champion and obviously a good fighter.

As far as world champions go, however, he is not what I consider an elite fighter. He is an average beltholder who is talked about for his unbeaten record, which IMO should read 42-1-1, with the loss to JMM.

Now, to the thread title: going by last night's fight alone, I noticed a few things about Chris John.

The man is a counterpuncher, but his reflexes are below average. I give him a C+ for defence. How many times did Juarez throw his inaccurate jab and land it smack in the middle of John's face? Or his counter right? How many bodyshots did John actually manage to block?

John has bad reflexes, but his D is far from atrocious. He has good footwork, and moves his head well, providing a moving target that jumps in and out and is hard to hit.

But to have a great or even simply a good defence, one needs to parry jabs and slip punches as a reaction, not an initial action. And as a counterpuncher, this needs to be one of John's strengths. However, John does this rather poorly, by my observation.

My prediction: John will be outboxed by the next slick boxer he faces, just like he was the last time he fought one...provided said boxer can stand up to his volume of shots, and provided the fight takes place outside of Indonesia.

 

John is not A-level.

Guzman does exactly what I mentioned in the first post: he uses his reflexes to parry or slip punches, instead of using simple initialized headmovement.

John fails where Guzman shines, the difference in this one area is night and day.

And yes, it is an important area for both men, as both are counterpunchers.

Don't get me wrong, John will win a lot of fights with his chin, footwork and volume combination punching. But he will be outboxed, soon, should he face a slick boxer.

 

Another way of repeating my original post, which a few people did not read.

I agree. :good