Salvador Sanchez - Camacho the only spanner in the works to Top 10 ATG Status ??

Amazing the body of work this guy had in front of him............When he died he was lined up for Gomez 2..Which I think all of us would pick him to win by stoppage considering the job Nelson did on him.......Then he was lined up for Nelson 2......Which history suggests he's an 80% chance of winning......(Not sure Nelson twice would have been that great of a legacy booster unless he went on to success at 130 !! Then again I'm sure he would).......

I imagine after that....... Chavez in 84/85 would be the blockbuster should he wait for Camacho to move to Lightweight !!.....

Personally I think he has the style to beat Chavez and 130 is only four pounds heavier than Featherweight !!.........I imagine too that Chavez would have gone on to great things at 135/140 so it would be a great win over time...Maybe even a trilogy with him later on !!

However watching Camacho at 130...............I can't see how Sanchez beats him over 12 ??...I just can't....Camacho was brilliant at that weight !!...Slightly bigger, ten times quicker and sanchez would probably have to chase....Cowdell showed that he didn't like that !

To me Camacho is the one fighter between Sanchez had he lived and being a Top 10er of alltime...My guess too is they probably never would have met considering the timing of Hector's departure..

Nelson twice, Gomez twice, Chavez for me with his other achievements as well a six year reign at the top..........Definitely top 10 worthy !!

I would be a liar if I claimed I have watched a lot of Sanchez. He is a fighter I have read about with great interest. His early career pointed to him being an ATG.

Top 10 worthy is a presitgous club. I can not answer that without seeing more footage of the man. He definitely could of had the opponents to stake a claim if he triumphed over them. He could of stepped up to fight Arguello too.

If he beats Chavez and Arguello it would be hard not to include him top ten or there abouts.

He never would have fought Arguello..........He was a 140 pounder in 82..

Ah yes you are right. Was trying to remember what divison arguello was operating in around that time but sure you are right. He would of been mixing it with Pryor.

Mixing it and Pryor...........Is a pretty good combination, Mate !!

Danny ''red'' Lopez gave him kittens so I would not get carried away TRUSS.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Mixing it and Pryor...........Is a pretty good combination, Mate !!

The mysterous bottle??

Although Sanchez brought an excellent record into his fight with Lopez he did not face steller opposition just a long line of no-hopers.

Before the fight which made him he lost to  Becerra and was stopped against Juan Escobar so he had flaws which were exposed.

The main thing that stands out with Sanchez is that after the loss to Escobar he changed trainers and hired Enrique Huerta. Huerta worked with him and converted his style from the traditional Mexican style to that of a boxer-puncher.

He succeded with that style but a veteran like Chavez might have exposed him. And I am sure he would reverted back to his brawling Mexican style.

It's amazing what Sanchez had done by the tender age of just twenty-three. As others have said, the fascinating thing about him is that he could look like an absolute freak at times, and then at others he found a way to look quite ordinary.

In some fights, like against Lopez (first one) and Gomez, he was absolutely unbelievable, and I do mean unbelievable. No word of a lie, there are things he does in those fights that literally make me put my hands on my head and say "wow" to myself when I watch them, even though I've seen them before. His 'aggressive defence', the smoothness of his counter punching, his concentration, accuracy, power etc almost made him look like he was ordained by a higher power to box.

Obviously, nobody can look like that in every fight or maintain that level of performance every time they compete, but how did he drop so badly from that standard at various times that he ended up having such an appalling struggle against someone like Ford (he won that fight because Ford gassed late on, no other reason really) and looking pretty average against Cowdell? His other notable wins fell kind of in the middle of those two extremes, I guess with more positives than negatives; fun fight and in the end a relatively convincing win over Laporte, and an epic struggle against Nelson, a thirteen-fight novice who'd never gone past ten rounds before and who gave him hell....But also a thirteen-fight novice who went on to be a legitimate all-time great.

I used to go along with the line of fighting down to his opponent's level and a lack of motiviation for his aforementioned struggles, and there's an argument to be made for it, but at the same time guys like milky have put forward compelling arguments that it's no coincidence that those really average showings came against guys who were either rangey or cagey, and that perhaps Sanchez just wasn't as formiddable against guys who didn't carry the fight to him and give him those countering opportunities. Two or three more years at the top would have given us a clearer answer, I guess.

On the basis of the Ford and Cowdell fights it's not an absolute given that he beats Pedroza to unify at 126 (you get more or less laughed out of town for suggesting that Pedroza might have beaten him) and it definitely would have been a worthwhile win for his legacy - certainly more so than going over old ground again with Laporte and Gomez, which seem to be what he had in mind before his passing.

But yes, there were some mouth-watering fights potentially a little further down the line for Sal, albeit the time frames might have been small for them. Sanchez-Chavez-Camacho at 130 could have been a classic boxing triange; Sanchez beats Chavez, Chavez beats Camacho, Camacho beats Sanchez based on styles. Chavez wasn't at his best at Super-Feather. Got pushed around by Laporte, looked a bit tight at the weight and didn't seem to hit with the same authority. Julio's problems with classy counter-punchers who could match him on the inside are well-documented and in this case I don't see an extra 4 lb being a hinderence to Sanchez. He'd have loved going up against Chavez's style.

Camacho was really a Lightweight from the start of his career who temporarily squeezed himself down to Super-Feather to grab a title - he didn't stay there long afterwards, only one defence. He took shots off big punchers such as Trinidad as high as Welterweight, so Sanchez's power is in no way guaranteed to upset Camacho, and he'd have to try and pin him down first in any case, which wouldn't be easy as Hector possessed the kind of hand and foot speed which Sanchez had never encountered before.

That said, Sanchez was a good code-cracker and though Camacho had blinding speed and decent power of his own as a youngster, his jab was really just perfunctory (didn't land it that frequently or throw it with conviction, more just a way of measuring his man and keeping them guessing and off-balance) so Sanchez could have made it interesting if he managed to get a read on what Camacho was doing. Even against Ramirez, one of Camacho's best showings, you can see that his attack got a little repetitive after a while. But given his speed, style and added weight I'd make the young Camacho a narrow favourite.

As you say, Truss, those kind of fights along with a potential Nelson rematch would have given Sanchez a chance to elevate himself from being a great fighter to being one of the very greatest....I think he'd have made a damn good run at it, personally.

EXcellent analysis....

Can't agree Chavez beats Camacho at 130.........Camacho was smarter than Meldrick and was just as fast in 84.......

Only later did he become less potent about the time Rosario landed a left hook in rd 5...

But it's fairplay......We all have opinions.

Yeah Truss, I admit it's a bit of a leap of faith picking the 130 lb Chavez over the young Camacho who still had his confidence and air of invincibility. As you say, the Rosario scare which shook him psychologically and made him more safety-first didn't come until 1986 at Lightweight.

He looked more assured before that point but I'd argue that the opposition he was facing up until then was generally a good match for him to look good against. Limon was as slow as they come and had been in countless wars by that stage, Solis gave him a test but wasn't really from the higher bracket etc. Ramirez was a very good win, but as I said earlier even in that fight, though Camacho won it comfortably, I thought his attack started to look a bit repetitive and he looked out of ideas once he couldn't get his man out of there. Ramirez didn't have the aggressive footwork and output of Chavez and if Julio wasn't deterred then I think Camacho would have problems late on.

Rosario definitely gave Hector a rude awakening but most of Camacho's better opponents came after that point - if he'd have beaten a couple more higher-class opponents before that fight I'd probably back him with a bit more conviction against Chavez at 130 or 135. As it is, though, I'd have it as a pick 'em, perhaps with a slight edge to Chavez.

Good debate gents.

A few points. Although the 80:20 rematch rule is a good guideline, there is a case to be made for the nelson fight being one of the 20. Green and short notice in the first fight, stopped from exhaustion, never in trouble in the rest of his career, and a proven ability to up the ante in rematches. Yes there's an argument that sal had figured zoomy out in the first fight, but while Sanchez would start a rematch favourite, its way off being a foregone conclusion.

I like Sanchez over Jcc at super feather. Whether it was wright troubles or just that he hadn't fully matured as a fighter, but chavez showed vulnerability on several occasions at that weight against guts inferior to Sanchez... Also as discussed, Sanchez liked guys who came at him.

Can see the argument for camacho over him stylistically... But there's no doubt who held the advantage between the ears. Interesting fight.

That's the thing with Sanchez, there were so many potential cracking fights out there for him... We'd have known for sure by the end of it just how great he was.