Greater Fighter: Chucho Castillo or Juan Manuel Marquez?

For once Chris I disagree. That Marquez was a level above Castillo, I mean. And him being a top five talent, that's hugely overrating him to me. I'd hesitate to say that any fighter who fought in a significantly weaker era than another is a level above, especially when he had trouble with relatively average fighters because of a weakness against certain approaches and wasn't clearly the dominant fighter of his time. You can make an argument that Marquez deserves to rank higher but I think it's very close between the top Mexicans once you get past Chavez, Olivares, Saldivar and possibly Sanchez. Zarate, Marquez, Barrera, Morales, Canto, Herrera, Chucho, Arizmendi, Casanova etc are all fairly close to each other imo depending on what you like and I find ranking them hard. I know you're a big Marquez fan, pal but with all due respect and the best will in the world I think you're overselling him. It's feasible to have Marquez that high if you place emphasis on certain criteria, he was a great fighter but I can't get on board with him being a full level above Castillo, not when Castillo looks the more complete and skilled fighter on film to me. If they were the same size I can't imagine Marquez coming close to beating Lionel Rose without knocking him out tbh. That's just me though, agree to disagree.

 

Btw, your write up on Luis Rodriguez was splendid.

 

Marquez is by far THE most overrated of the Mexican greats.

 

Ahhh good analogy

 

Fair enough. We can’t agree on everything. I do feel Marquez is very underrated on here.

 

Castillo had more toughness than JMM...to go with his already considerable cleverness...
CC was the man who stopped Ruben Olivares's incredible ko streak.

 

It's fairly cliched and pretentious but I'll take someone calling it good!

 

I think he gets his due tbh but is a divisive fighter. People used to be harder on him a few years ago, probably a decade. He was easily considered last of the Mexican trio back then by many but has now rightfully overtaken Marco and Erik.

 

Barrera, Morales and he are all overrated in comparison to other lesser known near great/great Mexican fighters; there seems a widely held assumption that they were just better than the likes of Castillo, Herrera, Medel, Roman, Martinez etc with little actual defence or explanation of the opinion. Never mind Zarate, Canto, Olivares and the like. I don't think that's what Chris has done, he's too good a poster, but I don't rate JMM as highly as he does. It's as hard for me to get the ridiculous lunges and overextended misses from a flat footed position against John and Norwood out of my mind as it is as easy to enjoy the calm, masterfully timed and technically superb counter combinations that routinely disrupted the aggressive flurries of Pac when he was bang in the middle of throwing them.