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.
I actually thought Chris John showed how good he was last night. He started off awkward but when he got comfy, he boxed very, very well. excellent right hand and good upper body movement.
I don't think the thread title is particularly fair to John. An average fighter wouldn't be competitive with Marquez, regardless of the actual scoring of the fight, as Marquez himself is excellent. He looks good to me. Not a p4p talent, but average is an unfortunate choice of word.
Exactly. He does have good skills. An A-level fighter...maybe around the skill level as a Soto, Guzman etc...
But he was also in a hostile crowd, and it was his first fight outside of Indonesia. I thought he dominated the middlerounds once he got comfortable, but then either the crowd got to him or Rocky did in the late rounds when it seemed that John began to slightly abandon his plan and opt to slug. Other than that, he showed a lot of quality. Just let him fight again before you formulate a solid opinion.
The same could be said of you. The guy has talent it's no denying. Average is a harsh word. He's not elite, but very few guys are these days.
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.
So world class fighters can also be catergorized as average? So are there like tons of average fighters and only a couple p4p talents?