Barrera - His Highest Possible Ranking?

Given this line right here, I'm not going to go further into a debate with you on this issue.

I'll let everyone else decide who's nuts. By everyone I mean the 90% of boxing fans who probably disagree with you.

 

You have him ahead of Gomez at 122lbs even though Wilfredo beat better fighters, was undefeated and looked better. And Pep's win over Saddler is far better the Barrera's over Hamed and I'm a fan of Marco.

 

I have him around 85, but I wouldn't argue with someone having him around 70th. By contemporary standards, his resume is truly excellent IMO.

 

Barrera has much more skill and variety than Gomez. I think Barrera also has the better wins and would school Gomez head 2 head, Gomez also lost against the best he faced MAb did not

Barrera's victory over Hamed came when Hamed had unified all the FW belts over 6years and cleared out FW and was considered top5 P4P. To move up a division and technically disect Hamed who seemed unbeatable at the weight was massive. Pepp and Sadler are both great but Sadler lost twice in the 2years before Pep beat him, I don't think the win is of the same magnitude as MAB's win

 

I agree with a lot of what you have said. I felt Barrera was hard done by in the first Morales fight, and I feel he has a genuine case for the Juniors Jones rematch. Likewise, the judges for Marquez were undoubtedly corrupt. There is not even an arguement. All of the undercard fights - Forbes/Hopkins, Penalosa/Ponce De Leon were all ridiculously scored. To the point where an investigation should have been implemented.

That said, I had the 2nd Morales fight a draw, and MAB's wins at 122 just don't compare to the likes of Gomez.

 

Well, for one thing PowerPuncher, Wilfredo Gomez is the no.1 122 lb fighter of all time, not Barrera.

I may be in the minority but I have Barrera at about no.55 (If I remember correctly) Very good resume, good H2H, exciting as well, the win over Naseem Hamed is amongst the greatest of the last decade (people forget what a destroyer Hamed was when Barrera fought him. Faded or not, and in my opinion he definitely was, he's one of the hardest hitters of all time and had a nightmare style to deal with, Barrera tamed him easy, and even though Naz's skills and reflexes had diminished, his finishing was still amongst the best in the sport and he was most probably the hardest hitter P4P at that time)

 

atsch So much wrong with this part I don't know where to start.

Gomez's win over Zarate was exactly the same except for one thing; Barrera was moving up (and continues to do so) and beat the bigger guy, Gomez beat the guy coming up, a guy that was notiously big for a Bantamweight, and was, at the time 54-0 (53)

Zarate was a superior fighter to Hamed in many ways and just as feared a puncher when he met the younger, less experienced Gomez, who destroyed Zarate, barely allowing Zarate to get his punches off before dropping him, over and over, embarrasing him.

Post Sal Sanchez (no shame in losing to Sanchez at the higher weight) Gomez relied more on the punch rather than boxing into it. Lupe Pintor was a fantastic win also, easily as good a win as any of Barrera's win except Hamed (which the Zarate win surpasses IMO)

Barrera did not lose against the best he faced? No you're right he didn't, he also lost to Junior Jones. He lost to Pac who was one of the best he faced, and regardless of what you think of the 1st fight he also lost to Morales (at least once) one of the best he faced.

Sure, Gomez lost to Nelson and was given a gift against Lockridge. But to say Barrera had a better skillset (Gomez's footwork alone in his Prime surpasses anything Barrera has) and say that Barrera would school him H2H (at 122 at that, a weight where Gomez never lost and beat one of the top 3 ATG Bantamweights and never won a fight that wasn't by K.O, against some admittedly shady opposition at times but look through Barrera's career and you will find guys with similar awful records too) and Gomez was not a very tall guy, boxed beautifully when he wanted too, and I'm sure most people would agree, is one of the top 10 all-round punchers (accuracy, speed, punch choice, power) of all time, a two-fisted K.O artist.

Barrera would do better than many against Gomez. But he would not beat him. And he would NOT school him.


And before you call me a hater, I just praised Barrera up in the post before. I have Gomez five or six places higher than Barrera, that's all.

 

And PowerPuncher, by all means, post your response on how/why Barrera would 'school' Gomez at SBW. I'd love to see how you see the fight panning out to be honest, because anything other than a K.O Gomez's way is basically unfeasible.

 

Are you serious, gomez pre sanchez at 122 was one of the most complete fighters i've ever seen, he was better than barrera, pretty clearly so in my eyes

 

To be fair, about 90% of boxing fans thought Barrera beat Morales the first fight. If you combine defense with solid clean punching and overall better work, Barrera was consistently getting the better of Morales throughout the fight. Even Hamed faced Barrera on the basis that he believed he was fighting the real winner. The commentators over here were stunned when calling the fight. Even one of them remarked that Lou DiBella was shaking his head in disbelief right after the scores were announced. And he wasn't a promoter at the time who was tied to either fighter.

I'm actually glad you aren't giving yourself a serious blusher by calling the fight for Morales. You always make the case for Whitaker-Chavez being as far away from a draw as the Earth is from Pluto. Now you know how others feel towards your scores.

Hopkins-Wright, a draw. Who else had that a draw? Nobody I can think of apart from yourself. Don't come back with punch stats, they mean zero. They are done with the press of a button when someone thinks a punch a lands. The impact of those punches aren't measured and it's not an accurate system. Many punches that are parcially blocked or even hit gloves will be counted considering the speed of some punches when the human eye is judging it.

 

:good:good:good

 

Barerra would school Gomez?

Me thinks PP has only seen Gomez against Sanchez and Pintor, or whatever other little film there is of him on youtube.
Dont worry I was in the same boat, but Gomez was just about the best 122 pounder I have ever seen in his early career. You really have to see him against Kobayishi, Zarate and Perez to name a few, to see how good he was.
Better than Barerra, Better then Morales..oh and better than Junior Jones.

 

So are you trying to say Robbi that Morales-Barrera I was a robbery of Whitaker-Chavez proportions?

If you are, let me tell you, that that is utter rubbish. 90% of people might have thought Barrera won, but 90% also would admit that the fight was damn close.

The biggest dilemma in the Barrera-Morales fight is trying to figure out what is more important, clean, consistent connects which don't seem to really effect a fighter, or sporadic clean effects which knock the other fighter off balance and maybe even hurt him. That was the tale of the fight.

Morales would land consistently throughout a round but Barrera would sting him occasionally with shots that appeared to have more effect. Personally, I found it hard to decide in that instance who to give the round to. It wasn't that Morales wasn't landing clean shots or anything, it's simply that Barrera took them well and Morales wasn't taking what Barrera threw as well.

It's obvious that a lot of people think well Barrera was hurting him, Barrera was winning the rounds, simple as that. Ok, maybe, but I think a lot of the times Morales was being knocked off balance he wasn't really hurt, which kind of makes things more complex.

Either way, I think it's nuts to suggest that anyone that has any of the three fights scored for Morales is nuts. And that's what I'm primarily reacting to in PP's post.

Again, most had Hopkins winning, fair enough, but nearly everyone had that fight close. On the telecast on Setanta I was watching, Jim Watt had Hopkins by a point or two, but said the fight was that close he wouldn't begrudge Winky the win if he got it. He's usually a good judge of fights.

I haven't researched who said what about the fight, but I just googled 'Winky Wright Bernard Hopkins draw' and saw that the New York Post had it a draw. So I'm not totally alone

 

well i didn't get a response from PowerPuncher, guess he decided to actually watch some Gomez fights and realised how wrong he was :rofl

 

I score boxing bouts in a similar manner, after Lewis v Holyfield 1 fight, i mentioned how i had scored the fight in work and a work mate that i had never 'talked boxing' too in my life, pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket scoring ever round identical to me, every single one round the same.
I too will score a close round as even, although boxing is scored round by round, if a judge scores fairly even rounds for one boxer or another, you are more likely to get a bad verdict ? for example, in a 'spliting hairs' judges verdict, may score 7 very close rounds to boxer A {where as i would have scored all 7 even} and 5 very clear rounds to boxer B.

Boxer B would have dominated the fight as a whole, Boxer B won 5 clear rounds and had 7 very close rounds, Boxer A won no clear rounds at all.
I may have scored such a fight as Boxer A 115 Boxer B 120, a 'splitting hairs' judge may have scored the Fight Boxer A 115 Boxer B 113, and we end up with a very poor decision, lots of people dont know how to score a fight, including some judges !