Underappreciated - In 20 Years...

You guys may be right though regarding how certain fighters are taken into consideration with the masses, I just tend to disagree with it.

 

Yeah I see your point... though the passage of time usually works to diminish the worth of most fighters' opponents. E.g. Hagler's and Monzon's comp imo get underrated simply because people don't know of them.

But Hopkins I don't think will really suffer from this becuase we already know that his opponents were average. People forgetting them will mean in effect that they aren't forgetting anything much.

So his rating might not really drop.

That said, it staggers me that people have him above Monzon and Hagler right now, so who knows....

 

1.
2. The first time I scored it I had Marquez winning all but 3 or something but had it closer on subsequent scores. Pacquiao looks pretty ordinary after the first and Pac was getting hit clean allot before the KDs too
3. I havent seen it but the consensus from the press and ESB was a John win, pity we can't see John unify to see how good he is, and he does look tasty from what I've seen
4. Winky needs to get a fight, he should have rematched Taylor, and he should have pulled out all stops to get Pavlik. Both winnable
5. Punchstats sometimes count blocked/missed shots, Spinks seemed to land at will and make Taylor look foolish. But I only watched it once, in the late night and most US fights involve staying woke until 4am here

 

No. I can't see Marquez always beating Barrera. I find this an Ali-Holmes type of scenario. Very similar type of fighters going up against each other. And none has a major weakness the other can exploit to seriously dominate. Barrera and Marquez at their best were pin-point sharp-shooters. They both relied heavily on their jabs, technique, ring generalship, left hooks to the body, and speed. If you watch both at their best, Barrera was slightly smoother and free'er with his punches. Marquez IMO was textbook. Straight shoots up the middle, etc.

If you watch Marquez against Polo and Medina, he fights very much like Lopez. And Barrera's best performances to show his technical skills at their best, Hamed and Sanchez. And against Sanchez he was sublime. Timing his own jab over Sanchez's jab. Not many orthodox fighters are comfortable boxing with the jab against southpaws, but Barrera done it as well as any fighter I have seen that night. Also the right hand lead down the pipe and his trademark left hook to the body were on the money.

IMO Marquez edges Barrera on exactly what I think he has over him. Refined technique. Tidier up the middle with his punches.