Ali fought a washed up Frazier the third time, or so he thought, and IMO if he hadn't neglected to train Ali would have beaten Frazier handily, but he didn't train hard for that fight, and thats why it was so brutal.

Floyd fought Corrales when that was a 50/50 fight. He had a rematch with Castillo who a lot of people felt won their first fight, when he could have just moved on. People thought he was crazy to move up to welterweight and face Zab Judah, but he did, then he won the linear belt that I still have a ring magazine that felt Baldomir would win because he was considered the best welterweight in the world at the time. Many people thought Oscar was too big and too bad at 154 for Floyd to stand a chance, but he outboxed him and even stood toe to toe for a lot of it. THen Floyd IMO cleaned up Ricky Hatton the person he neglected to fight at 140.

Now he is coming back after almost 2 years and facing the 2nd best fighter on the planet, who may have not done anything above 135 yet, but is the guy who gave the p4p #1 current king two contraversially close fights, and arguably won more rounds than Manny did in either fight. When Marquez faced Manny, Manny was 3 pounds less than when he faced Hatton or De La Hoya, so obviously Marquez dealt with similar power to what Hatton and Oscar dealt with better than they did. He also dealt with the speed better and Manny's underrated boxing skills.

Also Lyle, nobody wanted Cotto in the ring with Mayweather when Mayweather fought Brusseles, and certainly not when he faced Sosa. IMO Arum and COtto wanted Brusseles to fight MAyweather because he was a sparring partner for Cotto with a similar style, and Mayweather destroyed him, I believe that backed off Cotto's people for a few years.

ALso about Sosa, I don't think anyone is denying Cotto is the way bigger puncher, Mayweather was the smaller man against Sosa, while Cotto probably had a 10-15 pound size advantage over Sosa. Cotto is a good fighter, but his people didn't want him legitimately in with Mayweather until the MOsley fight.