Juan Manuel Márquez has made a somewhat shocking omission from his greatest Mexican boxers of all time list
The International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee was asked to name his top five Mexican fighters and he left out one name in particular.
Márquez, who has dissed the fighter before, left Saul Álvarez out of a list which he admitted was hard to put together.
He was a world champion in four weight classes as a professional and had a career in the paid code spanning more than two decades, having competed from 1993 to 2014.
But 48-year-old ‘Dinamita’, who retired with a record of 56-7-1 (40 KOs), refused to put some respect on ‘Canelo’s’ name.
In an interview with the ProBox TV Español podcast on YouTube, he said:
“The history of Mexican boxing is very rich. It is difficult to put five.”
“I’m going to say it: there are many fighters who win world championships as I did and as several did.”
Márquez went on to list some of his Mexican greats:
“Rubén Olivares, Carlos Zárate, Lupe Pintor, Salvador Sánchez, to name a few.”
“Because the history of boxing in Mexico is very rich: (Marco Antonio) Barrera, (Erik ‘Terrible’) Morales, Chávez. I put myself last.”
He went on to name Julio César Chávez as ‘unquestionably the best’, while Ricardo “Finito” López gets a mention alongside Humberto ‘La Chiquita’ González.
Considering what Canelo has already achieved in his career, it’s quite the snub to completely omit him from the list.
Álvarez is the current custodian of every belt in the super-middleweight division and has won world titles in the super-welterweight, middleweight and light-heavyweight categories.
But the fact that Álvarez has done as much as he has in the sport still wasn’t enough for Márquez to name him among the greats.
The 32-year-old will put the WBA Super, WBC, IBF, WBO and Ring Magazine belts at stake against the current WBA Super and IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin on September 17 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.