https://imgur.com/gallery/8tD9kGz Hope you enjoy the cocky little ******* finally catching his beatdown.
Enjoyable read and brilliant breakdown. I haven't made that trip down memory lane for a while. Barrera is simply my favourite boxer ever, and that night was unforgettable. I told everyone at my boxing gym and even strangers at the bar I watched the fight at that he'd outbox Hamed like he outboxed Salud and avoid his power, and that was the first night as a boxing fan I felt like a genius prognosticator. MAB by the way is sadly underappreciated here, I think because Marquez had the longer career and beat Pac in his prime so left an impression on even casual fans. Marco sure did have an educated jab, changing up his delivery and using feints as you say. The key for him that night was moving to his left, staying away from Hamed's southpaw left. I don't think he was tactically worried when Hamed turned orthodox, as it just gave him a better target for hooks. MAB had a 12 round plan and just refused to let Hamed get the upper hand throughout, whether it was finishing every exchange, staying wary of exposing himself to Hamed's power, or grabbing Hamed to avoid standing in range to get countered. He was really zoned in late, and was cleanly countering Hamed with ease. If Hamed had opened up more we would've seen Barrera dish out more of a sustained beating and possibly press for a stoppage. I know Barrera could be an arrogant alpha dick and a dirty fighter, but come on the head slam as he said "Who's your daddy?" was the perfect coup de grace to his performance that night. He more rubbed Hamed's face in the padding than had him at risk of contact with the actual post anyway. I see some delusional revisionist scoring every now and then from British fans, who say this was a close fight, and Hamed won even 5 rounds. No way, it was a near shutout with Marco only giving away the couple rounds he probably lost by being too careful. This was one of the all time great master boxing lessons.
I believe Naz actually had another fight before retirement, although I couldn't tell you who it was against without checking. Was a massive fan of the Prince as a kid and have been a bit anti-MAB since. Time heals all wounds though and I managed to keep it together enough to appreciate the breakdown, top notch as usual.
Thanks, Escudo. Some of my favorite moments in the ring are when Marco turned nasty. What do we know about Rudy Perez? I never knew much about him.