Manuel Medina Derrick Gainer Jimrex Jaca Manny Pacquiao (He won at least 1 of those fights) Marco Antonio Barrera Rocky Juarez Joel Casamayor Juan Diaz How does beating these guys not at all compare or even come close to MAB and Morales' resume?
I love MAB, but at this point you have to give it to JMM if you have ANY objectivity. EM is in my top 5 favorite fighters of all time sentimentally, but there's no way you can have him above MAB or EM status wise. He definitely wins the popularity contest on ESB though.
Wow, okay, here goes. I edge it to Barrera because he beat Morales twice (which two, who knows), beat Hamed, and had some easy defenses at a weight that should have been too high for him, as well as his great streak and comeback from the pac fight. He also put up a great performance against Marquez past his best. Morales is second for moving up to lightweight and pretty much clearning it out in like two or three fights before Barrera took his belts. . Beating the guys Floyd did but beating them up a bit more in the process. His first fight with Pac makes him almost tie Barrera, certainly the cornerstone of his career. Marquez is great, had a very noncompetitive fight with Mayweather and honestly honestly I feel he deserved to lose twice to pac. Can't score either fight for him at all. Morales actually did beat Pac and did not get knocked down every time he stood up to him. At least in the first fight. I barely scored the Barrera fight for Marquez. That kind of style, where rounds might go this way or that way, seem to typify his career and do not symbolize clear dominance. So in my mind he lost to Pac twice and deserved to lose against Marco. He's great, but I can't seem to score fights in his favor.
**** man. Of those 3 I've always had a change of opinion because I think they are on par. Within the yr or so I remember picking MAB first, then JMM first, and now I'm picking Morales. There guys are interchangeable. 3 different styles, great resumes, warriors through and through.
His resume below lightweight includes Jimrex Jaca, Rocky Juarez, Manuel Medina, Robbie Peden, Derrick Gainer, Barrera himself (close but clear imo), and his losses against John, Norwood, and his bull**** pro debut DQ means that up until a failed welterweight experiment against one of the best defensive fighters ever (who didn't even honor their contract), he had never lost definitively. The same cannot be said for MAB and EM. Critics may say he never dominated his opposition in his prime, while I look at it as him never being dominated in his prime. Then you have Pacquiao; Marquez fought (arguably beat) and at least matched the best version of Pacquiao any of the 3 had faced. I don't have to argue about which way it went to make the point that to match wits and blows evenly with a nearly complete Manny Pacquiao, you have to be a special fighter. After that, Marquez makes up for the lull in his early career (plagued by a mix of bad management decisions and plain ducking by competition) by his amazing longevity. A good few pounds past his best weight and many years past his physical prime, Marquez was the first man to knock out a past-it but still game Joel Casamayor; adjusted bravely against underrated Juan Diaz who gave the effort of his life that night, and proceeded to knock him out; and got off the canvas from an absolute bomb to produce a masterclass of inside counter-punching and stop Katsidis in a fight where he was probably the best we've ever seen him. Basically, every time a new lightweight contender rose to the top of the ranks, Marquez brutally dispatched them. MAB-EM may have the most memorable trilogy ever and some of the best resumes in Mexican boxing history, but the consistent display of technical brilliance and stubborn determination Marquez dishes out every time he fights against top opposition (which has everyone guessing whether or not he'll survive) has him right up there with the both of them. For sure. Think what you want about Kellerman and his consistently herpes-ridden upper lip, but he makes some great points here which nobody should dismiss when attempting to rank Juan Manuel "Dinamita" Marquez. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ewo7qzKU80&feature=feedrec_grec_index[/ame]
I think some people are rating them on how they fought Pacquiao, and not how they fought/would have fought each other.