The knee-jerk reaction to this would be (from someone whose name begins with X): "JMM schools that big eared Arab fraud." However...it's not that simple. JMM could be hurt and dropped. Not only did Pacman bounce him up and down off the canvas early...but Barrera hurt him significantly in their fight (was incorrectly not ruled a KD though). As hard has Pac hit....Hamed hit harder. hamed could conceivably clean his clock before the end. However...I have to still pick JMM to win by decision after getting dropped early and using his smarts and craft to survive.
Knee-jerk or no, I'd pick JMM for all the reasons given in the OP. JMM has proven himself one of the most durable little fuckers who ever laced 'em up- Pacquiao hit him more times that I can count and couldn't get rid of him. Hamed would get discourgaed and then countered to death by a succession of crisp, combination counter-punches. He might even get stopped late IMHO. MTF
There's little chance for Hamed to score a KO, if you ask me. Once you took away his rhythm (& Barrera, an inferior boxer-mover to Marquez, did it with that very style), you reduced him to single shots. The angles were still bizarre & the power still very real, but putting it bluntly, Pacquiao, he ain't. The speed &, more significantly, volume just aren't there --- Pacquiao never convincingly beat Marquez in two outings, & he is firmly better than any version of Hamed. Marquez decisions him, & with room to spare. Just a different class of fighter --- while I do agree with this emerging trend of thought that Hamed has become under-rated to some degree with time, he truly never is, was, or could have been a special fighter. Marquez is.
Hamed in his Brendan Ingle days I think would have KO'd Marquez late. Naz really regressed with Steward IMO and by that time his physical skills were deteriorating. I didn't like Prince too much but I admit he has become underrated. I think Marquez outboxes him early but gets drawn into a brawl and thats all she wrote. Hamed TKO 9
I agreew ith your assessment of Hamed. But I think you underrate Marquez. I could see a 96-98 era Hamed winning 1 of a trilogy, but Marquez is favourite here.
The idea of Hamed standing ANY chance at all against Marquez, when he had the pants schooled of him by an inferior boxer in Barrera, is downright absurd. Marquez would win every single round against Hamed and possibly stop him late. Make him look utterly stupid in the process.
Just to reiterate, Gay Marquez would dominate every second of every round against Hamed, even more than Barrera did.
Barrera used a fairly similar blueprint to Marquez's style to counter-shot & outbox Hamed. It produced a convincing victory, & Barrera was never the precision boxer in that same vein Marquez is.
Exactly. Barrera basically fought like an inferior Marquez to dominate Hamed. Barrera is an excellent fighter but he is a far more basic "boxer" than Marquez.
That's true, which is why I feel, as I said, there is realistically little chance of a Hamed KO victory. He never had the intensity or work-rate of Pacquiao, who could not finish Marquez off in even the most dire of scenarios. In point of fact, there just is virtually nothing Hamed does better than Pacquiao, & in the same sense, Barrera --- though a commendable boxer-mover when he wants to be --- is not a specialist in the style, while Marquez is. Since Marquez sacrifices nothing appreciable to Barrera in terms of endurance, chin, overall durability, or cunning...what other conclusion is there than Marquez almost certainly outclasses Hamed? They are simply on two different levels as fighters.
