Marco Antonio Barrera was asked for the five greatest Mexican fighters of all time and did not put himself on the list.
The three-division champion gave his order to Behind The Ropes Boxing.
Number one is Julio Cesar Chavez, two Salvador Sanchez, three Ricardo Lopez, four Juan Manuel Marquez, five Canelo.
The top two are close to consensus. Chávez went unbeaten through his first 90 fights. Sánchez is boxing’s great unanswered question, killed in a car crash at 23 while widely expected to become an all-time great.
López is the deep cut and the one that shows Barrera was thinking rather than reciting. Finito retired undefeated after 52 fights and made 21 straight defences of the WBC minimumweight title through the 1990s, in a division most casual fans never watch.
Márquez and Canelo round it out, both four-division champions. Canelo challenges Christian Mbilli for the WBC super-middleweight title on October 31 in Riyadh, trying to reclaim a belt he lost to Terence Crawford last September.
The interesting part is who is not there. Barrera left off Érik Morales, the man he fought three times in one of the great rivalries the sport has produced, and left off himself despite beating Morales and Naseem Hamed and winning titles at three weights.
His own career had a false ending in the middle of it. Barrera won his first 43 fights before two defeats to Junior Jones cost him the WBO super-bantamweight title and his unbeaten record, and he briefly retired before coming back for the best years of his life.
