Juan Manuel Marquez is underrated, he should be rated as one of the ATG

Anyone who's actually watched that fight knows JMM actually beat John. John simply didn't do enough for me, dancing about and fighting in spurts while you get out worked and out punched doesn't win you a fight. But when you are fighting an opponent with home town advantage on their promoters card in a fight pretty much nobody watched in the US/Mexico then of course you are not going to get the decision.

 

Even Marquez fans would admit it was a close fight. John, hardly an ATG, made him look really bad.

No idea what possessed Marquez to take that fight.

 

Imagine if one judge had scored the knockdowns correctly, or if the first fight had been stopped in the first round...

What ifs don't really help

 

He declined a rematch with Pac and chose to go to Indonesia and fight john in a parking lot for peanutts instead... really baffling decision ...

 

I wouldn't call myself a fan but i thought he won the fight by a healthy margin.

As for why he took the fight. Combination of factors. One while Beristain is a good trainer he's a terrible manager, from not taking the Pac rematch immediately to knocking back a big payday to fight Morales and then accepting a fight vs a foreign fighter on foreign soil for a pittance it was a shocking decision but even after all that JMM was loyal to Beristain.

The other factor was he had been stripped of the IBF title after nobody bid for a mandatory fight vs Thai boxer Rakkiatgym. Why the IBF stripped him is a mystery as even Rakkiatgym's promoters failed to bid on the fight as everyone knew it was a loss maker, JMM was forced to take a mandatory nobody wanted or would promote and yet he was blamed for the IBF's horrible matchmaking. JMM had one fight left on his contract with Arum and Arum didn't want to waste it on a loss making mandatory vs somebody nobody knew and wanted JMM to fight Morales instead. Also because JMM was the WBA's Super champion which means you are a unified champion, losing the IBF belt meant he was stripped of the Super WBA belt too.

JMM was now with no belts, Arum was pissed at him for not taking Morales and wouldn't offer him an alternative so Beristain agreed to fight John in the Phillipines for I think $35K when JMM was making a guaranteed minimum $100K on any Arum card.

 

I agree. He didn't take a whole lot of chances between Pac fights except the money fight vs Mayweather. For example, 135 had fighters that were not all that great like past it Casamayor, Katsidis and Juan Diaz. The Bradley fight was a nice challenge, and he lost. Granted he was old and he made it kind of close.

It showed his weakness again, leading. Bradley's style wasn't really what he showed vs Marquez. He literally changed his style for Marquez and that was enough to beat him.

 

Your memory is impeccable if you got all of this off the top of your head. Nice bit of knowledge. I don't keep up with belts or promotion stuff.

 

**** off lol

 

Then your ATG standards are too low.

 

Yeah that's what it is...I remember when they got ranked in the 100 greatest boxers of all time n I thought...yeah...crap them 2..barely worth a mention...what a load of **** lol

 

I went on a JMM binge at the start of the year as I hadn't really followed his career other than the Pac fights so it's all pretty fresh in my memory right now having researched a lot of the circumstances of his fights.

 

Who qualifies as an ATG in your book? Does Frazier, Liston, LaMotta?

 

No need 50 years ago. Floyd, Pacquiao, Canelo and Ward are ATGs in the last generation. Probably Marquez.

Morales and Barrera are HoFs but not ATG level.

 

Ward is an ATG because? Does Golovkin count as an ATG?

 

Because he dominated his weight easily. Super Six achievement is ATG level. Then, he moved up to 175 and beat one of the most avoided fighters two times.

Golovkin is interesting fighter. He could give problems to all ATGs but his resume isn't ATG.