How would you rate Juan Manuel Márquez at his best, strictly speaking in H2H fights?

World class. A slight notch below Arguello and Mayweather but excellent nonetheless.

 

Juan Manuel Marquez’s at his best was actually to me an ATG boxer his skills were so wildly uncommon. JMM didn’t look sparkling vs Mayweather but he looked half the size… if I was going to train a fighter I’d want the end product to look like “Dinamita“ that’s a special fighter and a high expression of proper boxing.

 

Depends on the match ups.

JMM excelled as a counter puncher but when he was forced to take the lead he wasn't as effective.

I don't think he's quite a H2H monster against the very best fighters at those weights.

When you think of the very best H2H fighters at those weights how many wins do you think JMM would get vs these fighters ?

Julio Cesar Chavez
Pernell Whitaker
Roberto Duran
Floyd Mayweather Jr
Azumah Nelson
Alexis Arguello
Hector Camacho
Sandy Saddler
Shane Mosley
Henry Armstrong

Etc.

I love JMM as a fighter but he's not quite on that level in regards to being a H2H monster so I'd rate him as world class.

 

I'd even say in and around featherweight there are a good number of skilled fighters who are rated well below him historically who would stand a good chance of exploiting his relative weakness on the front foot. Your Winstones, Legras, Famechons, Ruben Castillos etc. That's probably just as much a mark of them being underrated though than Marquez being vulnerable.

Throwing him in a deep era with reduced time to prepare or watch other fighters and the inevitable dips in form that come with it, off nights etc, it's not a stretch imo to see him dropping the odd ten rounder to the likes of Seki, Famoso Gomez, Vilomar Fernandez, Hiroshi Kobayashi, Marcano, Antonio Gomez, Serrano, old Olivares and Jofre etc. Even a tricky journeyman/gatekeeper or two.

On the other hand, if losing to some of the former, it's easy to see him either beating or outboxing several of the likes of Little Red, Chacon, Limon, Escalera, Davey Moore, Villaflor, Shibata, Saijo, Rojas, Numata, Boza throughout a career in a similar era while also knocking off ageing greats like Olivares or Jofre or stepping up to outfox a few of the limited/lesser bigger men at 135/140.

Still having an excellent/great career in the long run, much as in his own time.

 

He's a very interesting fighter in the sense that his skill level is clearly unbelievable, but his style seems to make or break his fights. Against a guy like Casamayor he'll look like a Good to Excellent foghter, but against Manny Pacquiao, he'll look like an ATG; then against Floyd, he'll look Average. I'm sure there's some Floydophiles who'll say it's just because of the skill difference between the two but I don't think so. If the skill and talent difference was the only thing at play, then Pacquiao should've done something closer to what Floyd did imo rather than have their legendary series.

I think for one, Marquez's style (from Pac 1 on, I've seen very little of Marquez before then), is marred with the issue of not really working as a pressure fighter. He absolutely shines when the guy is coming to him, and he clearly loses a step when he has to be the one out looking for the action. This is gonna cost him, imo, and lead to some one sided fights against quite a few guys; some of which are not miles better than Marquez if at all. The type of guys I'd rule out Marquez beating would be people similar to Pernell, Laguna, Joyce, Ross, Ortiz or Buchanan. Even someone like Villomar Fernandez is not an unlosable fight for Marquez.

However, there's the other side of the spectrum, when he has a guy right in front of him and he looks great. He counter-punches into combination unbelievable better than maybe anyone; he fights off the ropes great and his slight defensive adaptations were fantastic. His ring IQ was fantastic, his lead hand is very, very educated and he mixes in the traditional lead hook to the body, with beautiful uppercuts from both hands and an old-school, crafty, counter right. He also clearly has the stamina to fight hard all night, a big enough punch to get guys' respect and a good enough chin to slug it out. I also think his ability to control these aggressive fighters gets underrated too, which tbf, is a valid criticism - but if you look at the Diaz rematch, he shows some scary ring generalship.

But, is he actually good enough to beat guys like Duran, Williams, Saddler, Armstrong, Pryor, Arguello, Chavez, etc. or is he just an absolute stylistic foil to Pacquiao? Well, I think he loses to all of those guys but gives brilliant accounts of himself. Specifically, the more stylistically adaptable of these could potentially make it look fairly easy too. Duran and Chavez wouldn't relentlessly pressure him imo, and instead fight similarly to how they did in DeJesus III & Ramirez. Pryor too has the potential to land a quick flurry, move off at an angle and come back for more but I tend to think he wouldn't simply because he didn't do much of that against Arguello.

But how about the 'lesser' pressure fighters around this weight? Guys like Corrales, Ramirez, Castillo, Jack, Montgomery, Angott, Teo Cruz, Berg or Petrolle?

I think he's pretty favourite over all of them. Dunno if that's controversial but I just think he's the perfect fit; his timing is great and he'll punish you for attacking, but he won't punish you in a way that'll stop you from attacking; he'll punish you in a way that steers the exchange in his favour and that effect seems to accumulate over the fight. He'd drop a few here and there, definitely go down from time to time and we'd all cheer as they'd probably all be great fights but more often than not, I see Marquez beating basically everyone I just named. One fight for Marquez against guys around this level which I do really like is Lomachenko. It's pretty popular on here to either believe the hype and see Loma as a top 10 fighter in terms of ability, or to fight the hype and not give him any credit whatsoever, but I think Loma vs Marquez would he one of the most aesthetically pleasing fights of all time and I think Loma has a good shot at winning. I pick Marquez though because while Loma probably has a higher ring IQ on a microscale, he definitely doesn't have it in a more macroscale. Loma knows exactly how to set up small things which carry over to the next exchange, and build off of that, but Marquez knows how to steer the flow of a whole fight his way, yknow.

So, overall, I think I'd give him Excellent but the caveat is that he's closer to ATG against the right style and closer to Average against the worst style.