Very good or great? Volume 2: Ernesto Marcel

Definitely great in my eyes.

One of the most skilled Featherweights I have ever laid my eyes on. Superb movement with sharp punching and can seamlessly shift and fight in every area of the ring and at every range. Usually a counter-puncher but Marcel can lead with the best of them, mainly with his straight right and left hook combination.

In the fight with Arguello he mainly stays at long-range respectful of Arguello's power but he hangs with Arguello on the inside easily enough.

The best display of his skills is vs Antonio Gomez where he absoloutly dominates every minute of the fight and out-everything's Gomez. One of the best Featherweight performances I have seen.

The icing on the cake for me, aside from the Arguello win, is the Shibata fight. It was officially a draw but most thought Marcel won in the region of 10-5. He really dominates Shibata at every range and Shibata is left guessing throughout the fight, and remember if you can't knock out Shibata he is hell for anyone and Marcel dominates him with relative ease.

Just a superb fighter. He never really dominated for any length of time or really catches your eye on paper, but on film he has one of the most complete skill sets of any Featherweights and I try to sing his praises at every turn I can.

 

The Gomez fight is a masterclass.

 

It's a shame he didn't fight on after the Arguello win. As it is, he might not have the best record (although it is underrated), but he definitely had the skills to compete with any featherweight.

He gets overlooked but that tends to happen with fighters of whom there isn't much footage readily available.

 

Great, and not just a little.

As has been said, he dominated Gomez and the MD was bullcrap. He also clearly beat Shibata, with the draw being bullcrap.

The Duran fight should have been a UD not stoppage to Duran, and he gave Duran a real hard fight. I only had him down a point heading into the last round.

Head to Head he is arguably the best featherweight of the last 50 years.

 

Marcel is a favourite of mine, but on further reflection and trying to be as unbiased as possible i'm not sure i would go as far as Sweet and pater here.

Great talent and one of those fighters who is a lot more formidable head to head than a quick glance at his record/accmplishments on paper would have you believe, but overall i'd say borderline great/excellent type, rather than a true great, though that is more to do with his premature retirement than anything else really.

If he had comfortably outclassed Arguello i'd tend to agree he showed enough to be unequivocally great, even with the early retirement, but he dropped the ball in that fight a bit considering his talent and Arguello's preference for someone who will stand right in front of him imo.I'm not someone who really feels Arguello improved his effectiveness a lot post-feather mind you, and it's a mild criticism at best.

 

I actually think he clearly beat Arguello mante (even though it was close), and I think G agrees with me there, which is probably what makes us rank him a bit higher.

Where would you put Marcel on a h2h front considering featherweights post Pep-Saddler?

 

I always wondered why he retired after Arguello??? Anyone?

 

I thought the Arguello fight was a close but clear 10-5 sorta fight. Excellant by Marcel.

I do however think Arguello learnt from this fight, but I still give Marcel full credit for beating Arguello.

 

Yeah, kinda how I had it myself (146-141). There were a couple of rounds I could have seen the other way though so I have no problem with a 1 or 2 point loss for Arguello...

Fight for me had three parts: first part, Marcel outboxing Arguello, second part, Arguello starting to find his range and Marcel starting to tire, and third part, where Marcel was the more tired but landing the cleaner shots. I actually had Marcel taking the last 4 rounds, which I'm sure mante will disagree with...

 

But why..............:huh

 

Yes. I agree. Very impressive second wind from Marcel. I think I had the last third split 3-2 for Marcel if I remember right. My actual score might have been 9-6 if I think about it.

What do you think is the best filmed performance of Marcel?