Undisputed Welterweight Champion of the mid 90's to early 00's

Inspired by Ghostys thread and not my idea just that I have the time to do it. The idea is the brain child of MackemMawler.

In the late 90's the 147lbs division was very strong. Their was plenty of good fights and a few controversial decisions along the way. A few fights never happened so here we go.

First off vote for a top 8 please rank them in order of how you rate them. All fighters must have competed in the 147lbs division between 1995 and 2000. Pernell Whittaker is excluded as he was more of an early 90's fighter and lets face it he runs away with it which would make all this pretty pointless.

Once we have a few top eights I will tally the votes up and draw the fighters into 2 groups. Each fighter will fight the other 3 fighters in their group once. 3 points for a KO win, 2 points for a win on the cards and 1 for a draw. The top 2 will go through to a semi final and the rest doesn't need explaining.

The 2 groups will be drawn tomorrow.

1.Ike Quartey
2.Shane Mosely
3.Oscar Dela Hoya
4.Ricardo Mayorga
5.Vernon Forrest
6.Felix Trinidad

And two of:
Oba Car
McGirt
Campus

It seems a shame Whittaker (rated number 5 at Welter by Ring in 1999) has to lose out the guys above, but if thats the way its being run, fine by me. Thanks again SRR, lets hope theres some interest....

Sweet Pea wins to comfortably we did this last year with each of the old 8 weights and some of them were a bit dull because you had a clear winner. Sweet Pea is a class above the rest and wins to comfortably.

I'll take Car and Campus, McGirt lost to Sweet Pea in 93 and 94 and that was pretty much the end of him as a top fighter.

I think if we're excluding Whitaker partly on the basis that his best years were done before the late nineties, then we'd more or less have to exclude McGirt, too. A shame, as McGirt was a very, very fine operator.

1) De la Hoya 2) Trinidad 3) Mosley 4) Quartey 5) Forrest 6) Page 7) Mayorga 8) Carr

I'd like to have seen a fit McGirt fight Pernell. When they fought, Buddy's left arm was permanently damaged and it obviously hampered him. Very much an under-rated and under-appreciated fighter.

azania wrote:I'd like to have seen a fit McGirt fight Pernell. When they fought, Buddy's left arm was permanently damaged and it obviously hampered him. Very much an under-rated and under-appreciated fighter.

Rumours of this injury to McGirt not long before the first fight with Sweet Pea still circulate to his day. This is what Buddy's (somewhat shady) 'associate' Al Certo had to say on the matter, as taken from Kevin Mitchell's 'Jacobs Beach.'

"Buddy was something. It's a shame when we fought Whitaker. That's name, it aggravates me. 'Cos I know what Buddy would have done to him. He would have knocked him out. If we would have had two hands, we would have knocked him out, guaranteed. He had no left hand and his right hand was shakin', and he was already humping his brains out with broads, you know? Two years prior Buddy was slipping...But that's another story."

That said, I think we should remember that Whitaker did give (a now fully fit, so they say) McGirt another fight in 1994 and beat him handily. McGirt one hell of a fighter, but I think Whitaker would always have had the edge.

You're right in saying that he'd underrated though, Az. I take it you've seen his points win over Simon Brown when he won the Welterweight title? It's a masterclass. Perfect display of footwork and timing to make the bigger man look toothless at times - and Brown was certainly no mug, either. Even in losing to Taylor down at 140 lb a few years before, there was much to applaud in McGirt's performance. It was such a free-flowing contest, great to watch. I don't think I can remember the referee having to break them once.