How high can we rank Ricardo Lopez, really?

Afternoon, gents.

Ricardo Lopez, then. A fighter who it's impossible not to rate highly, but who it's also difficult to get a precise rating for due to the unglamorous divisions he campaigned in and the fact that, spending his career as a Don King fighter, he was regularly in the shadow of luminaries such as Mike Tyson, Julio Cesar Chavez and Felix Trinidad, all of whom were much more valuable assets to King despite the fact that Lopez was arguably the most painstakingly consistent championship performer of the 1990s.

That said, his status as a pound for pound all-time great is generally unquestioned. I always considered him to be one of the half-dozen or so greatest fighters that Mexico has ever produced as well as a probable top fifty pound for pounder across all weights and nations. I had the good fortune of conversing over Lopez with two of his biggest fans on here, Superfly and Tina, who extolled the virtues of 'El Finito' to me and pointed me in the direction of a couple of his best showings, and they did a fine job; not long afterwards, I found myself upgrading Lopez to the top thirty-odd pound for pound, and placed him as highly as third amongst all Mexicans, behind only JC Superstar and Salvador Sanchez.

But here's the rub. The other day I was arguing, not for the first time, that I find Joe Calzaghe's all-time great claims a bit shaky. I'd be more inclined to say he just misses out on that kind of claim, whereas Lopez was someone I'd always considered a shoe-in. Even those who do grant Calzaghe all-time great status would do so to a much lower degree than they would Lopez, right?

So why am I now finding myself comparing their resumes and thinking that there's not really anything between them at all, and that Lopez seems to get more benefit of the doubt than Calzaghe does for criticisms that could be aimed at both of them? I'm talking a lack of great contemporaries to test themselves against, staying in a poor division for too long when there were bigger fights higher up the scale and perhaps getting overrated in hypothetical head to head match ups with other greats from similar weight classes.

There are other fighters I could use in the parameters of the article, but I'll stick with Calzaghe for now as there are some parallels between him and Lopez. Both held belts in their first weight classes for many years and about twenty-odd defences, eventually unifying titles there and leaving little doubt about who the division's masters were by the time they were done in those classes. Towards the end of their careers they both made brief pit-stops to the next division up, picking up a belt each (a Ring Magazine one rather than an alphabet one in Calzaghe's case) before calling it a day, undefeated and while still near the top of their games, if a little past their true peaks.

Each man's list of victims tends to read nicely enough, but overall you'd have to say they read more like a list of pretty decent or merely good fighters with the occasional excellent fighter thrown in every now and then. It's also noteworthy that, during each man's prime, there tended to be bigger, more lucrative fights against a better rank of opposition in the divisions above that, for whatever reason, never came off; while Lopez was clearing out the 105 lb Strawweight division, there was the likes of Michael Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez, who themselves thrashed out a brilliant trilogy at Light-Flyweight, earned purses in excess of a million dollars - simply unheard of in those weight classes - and also became pound for pound players for a while.

There was also the brilliant Korean Myung-Woo Yuh just 3 lb north of Lopez in his early days as Strawweight champion as well - yet Lopez didn't step up to Light-Flyweight until 1999, when the formerly stacked and exciting division had lost a fair bit of its lustre. I can appreciate that Flyweight would have been a two-division jump, but when you fight in such weight classes, two divisions can be separated by as little as 7 lb, which was the case here. Flyweight housed guys like Marc 'Too Sharp' Johnson and the former amateur sensation Yuri Arbachakov at differing times during Lopez's career, again two names who would outstrip any of the ones he did have on his record.

Likewise, Calzaghe trawled his way through a relatively unspectacular Super-Middleweight division between 1997 and 2005, his stand out wins being a post-prime Chris Eubank, Robin Reid, Richie Woodhall and Byron Mitchell while 7 lb north of that the best pound for pounder fighter in the world during those years, Roy Jones, was dominating, along with names such as Dariusz Michalczewski, Antonio Tarver and Glencoffe Johnson, all of whom would have been viewed as more impressive scalps for Calzaghe and would have added more weight to his resume than the guys he was beating. It wasn't until 2006 that Calzaghe finally boxed a unification bout at 168, and when he did eventually move up to 175 the version of Jones he faced was a shell.

That said, he did beat an admittedly 43-year-old, but still very handy Bernard Hopkins who had another couple of world titles left in him and who was still tentatively touted as one of the world's ten best fighters in 2008 - isn't that a better win than anything on Lopez's ledger, taking in to account Hopkins' status as an all-time great?

Come to think of it, does Lopez really have better career wins than Calzaghe overall?

Lopez's best win, without doubt, came in his rematch with the Nicaraguan Rosendo Alvarez in 1998. Alvarez was unbeaten, the WBA titlist with a few defences under his belt and had taken that particular title from a solid champion in Chana Porpaoin. After their first fight ended in a technical draw, Lopez won their thrilling return on a split decision against one of the few men who could really extend him. But while Alvarez would go on to pick up another WBA belt at 108 lb after losing to Lopez, his overall status can't compare to that of Hopkins. The advanced age of Hopkins in 2008 is the only real factor to consider here, and the only reason why Lopez's victory ove Alvarez can be in the same bracket.

Looking at the rest of their wins, does Lopez really hold the aces? Saman Sorjaturong was really just 'an opponent' for Lopez in 1993, but it became a better win in light of Sorjaturong's out-of-the-blue win over the aforementioned Humberto Gonzalez in 1995, when he lifted the WBC and IBF Light-Flyweight belts and ended up making ten defences of the former. Comparable to someone like Kessler on Calzaghe's ledger, give or take an inch? Lopez's stand out win once he'd finally graduated up to Light-Flyweight came in his final professional outing, when he knocked out the South African Zolani Petelo in eight rounds in 2001. Petelo had arguably slid in to Lopez's old seat as the world's best at 105, so it was impressive the way Lopez swatted him when he tried to emulate the Mexican as a two-weight champion. But given how thinly-spread the quality can be at the lower end of the weight scale, with divisions separated by just 3 lb in some cases, there is every right to question just how good a champion Petelo was, just as there is with Jeff Lacy, the IBF Super-Middleweight titlist who Calzaghe demolished in 2006, who disappeared in to nothingness afterwards and whose list of victims beforehand wasn't exactly stellar.

Outside of that, each man really just has a mix of decent title holders who were liable to lose when they fought at the highest levels; do Alex Sanchez, Ratanapol Sor Vorapin, Will Grigsby, Kyung-Yung Lee and Kermin Guardia collectively represent a higher standard than an admittedly shopworn Chris Eubank, Robin Reid, Richie Woodhall, Sakio Bika and Byron Mitchell?

The logical explanation is that Lopez scores a lot more highly on the ol' eye test than Calzaghe does. Lopez was the more rounded, complete fighter than Calzaghe, who was involved in a few fights which were scrappy and stop-start. Parts of his game looked awkward, whereas Lopez was a smoother boxer, like Juan Manuel Marquez but with the bonus of having great footwork. A thoughtful tactician but also a venemous hitter who could counter-punch, with all the textbook skills. If you ignore all context, Lopez just looks like a greater fighter than someone such as Calzaghe, for starters.

It's also worth noting that Lopez was probably slightly more dominant against his best opponents than Calzaghe was against his. The decision against Alvarez was close, but ultimately fair. Sorjaturong was trounced in two, Petelo hardly got a look in before being felled by a left hook to the body, Alex Sanchez (against whom Lopez unified the WBC and WBO Strawweight belts) was dropped a couple of times before going in five etc. Compare that to Calzaghe, who needed a contested split decision to get past Hopkins, didn't have it all his own way against Kessler, was pushed all the way by Reid and who needed to get up off the deck to stop Mitchell.

There is a fair argument that, despite their similar stats and numbers, Lopez has a considerable edge in ability and utter dominance over most of his peers. But isn't that evened out, or at least tapered somewhat, by the fact that Calzaghe's opposition was arguably better, and certainly fought in a more respectable weight class with less scope for uncertainty regarding the quality of the fighters in it? Lopez's divisions were pretty exclusive if you look at how small a percentage of the boxing population could fall within them and how localised they often were the the Oriental and Latin markets. What's more, isn't it dangerous to rate fighters primarily on skill rather than achievements? Boxing is a result-sbased business, after all.

Ricardo Lopez was clearly an exceptional talent and his record is exemplary - but is there a case to be made that he gets let off a little too easily for his failure to secure bigger fights throughout his career when they weren't really that far out of reach? In terms of historical rankings, does he benefit more than any other fighter from the eye test, rather than eing judged on the cold, hard basis of results and opposition? Am I selling Lopez short or flattering Calzaghe by saying that, on paper at least, there's not a great deal in it between them?

I would rank Ricardo ahead of Joe overall, but considering that I'm a wee bit skeptical of Calzaghe's claims to greatness in the truest sense, I'm beginning to wonder if I've rated Lopez a shade too high in the past, and if I might need to start knocking him down a few spots in the Mexican or all-time estimations.

Let me know if you've got any thoughts, fellas. Cheers.

Excellent article. I've also been one to bang the drum for Lopez although not with the same level of enthusiasm as Super and Tina, but I agree that looking at Lopez from a purely boxing perspective, you have to rank him as one of the modern greats. Did everything exceptionally well whereas Calzaghe could be scrappy and his punches less than technically perfect. Sure I recall Lopez fighting on the undercard of Leila Ali and actually getting a smaller purse than her which is one of the reasons I tend to give him more of a pass when ranking him

The man was superb, rank him as high as you want.

As always it is a good read and raises some interesting questions. I never particularly know with the lower weights. As Dave has mentioned the fighters there do not fight for particularly big purses. The question this raises for me is does this mean a unification should be easier to make or there is not really the money there or groundswell of support to justify the risk? Not suggesting I have the answer, as I can’t decide.

What I would say in Lopez’s defence is whilst there were definitely fights, such as those you have outlined which would have elevated his ranking they are not the sort of fights that would have sent him and his ranking into a different stratosphere. The same is not true of Joe who had the pound for pound number one in the next division, a fighter who, no matter what revisionism may say to the contrary, was seen at the time as a true once in a generation type of fighter. Obvious thing to say, but a win over Jones does a lot more for a guy than a win over Myung-Woo Yuh does!

I suspect you do have a reasonable point in that Lopez perhaps does get off a little easy for his failure to secure unifications sooner, and if we are to criticise Joe for the same thing we should also criticise Ricardo. However I feel the reason is most of us (and I certainly include myself in this) simply do not know who is around the lower weights, as I suspect we are all guilty of ignoring them to some extent. Have never really given any thought to which of these two I hold in higher regard. Tough question, suspect my stance is softening on Calzaghe the further into retirement he gets, if there is a gap between them I suspect it is pretty tight.

Blatant Tino baiting.......

Great stuff Chris.  Keep beating the drum for the little fella.

You're wrong of course, El Finito is the 3rd best Mexican of all time after JCC (Sr not Jr) and Sal, and a shoe in for the top 25 of all time, but you've made a good stab at evaluating the legend that is.

I'm in Hong Kong and it's nearly 01:00 in the morning so I'm going to have to take the easy (and lazy) option of re-posting my old thread in support of Senor Lopez.  Little magician that he was.

If the thread is still alive when I get back, I'll chew the fat some more with you.

88's is probably better than this,.:

I can't see him higher than Marquez but then we're back to the age old dog-eared 606 argument: the unbeaten guy who didn't test himself as fiercely as the guy who picked up a few losses in doing so.

I rate the fighters who scored great wins over those that remained unbeaten but weren't tested as much.

Calzaghe is ridiculously overrated. He was possibly great. Possibly. And for the shortest of periods.

Thanks for the comments, lads.

Jeff, I see what you're saying when it comes to the names a few lb north of Lopez not being as glaring as the ones above Calzaghe. But Gonzalez, Carbajal, Yuh, Arbachakov, Johnson etc were all still better and more highly-regarded fighters than Alvarez and for a guy who gets an automatic pass in to the all-time great club - which Calzaghe doesn't - you could argue that Lopez didn't show enough inclination to chase those better opponents and spent too long at 105. Granted, a 7 lb jump up to Flyweight might have been a stretch for a wee fella like Ricardo, but Gonzalez and Carbajal would have made him big money and their class has never been in doubt.

Won't profess to be an expert on Yuh, but I've sought out a couple of his fights lately (basically for the purpose of this article) and looking at them (the ones against Rodolfo Blanco and Oh Kon Son, the latter which is one of the the most courageous displays I've ever seen from Son considering the unbelievable beat down he was taking while I'm on that subject) it's clear that he was a dangerous fighter, much better than most of the guys Lopez defended against. His record shows a longevity and consistency at championship level which isn't all that far off Lopez's, really.

I guess it's just dawned on me how little flack Lopez gets in comparison to Joe. And as I think the criticism Joe gets for it is largely valid, it kind of makes me wonder if Lopez has got too much leeway here.

Haz, as I said in the article I think in terms of stance and style there are similarities between Marquez and Lopez, the catch being that Lopez had much better and quicker feet and maybe a shade more punching power. But the way they were primarily counter punchers but also very aggressive ones, along with the way they both throw that left hook and double it to the head then body make them look like two peas from the same pod.

Marquez has been in with more marquee names, which would be the case even if Lopez had moved up in weight earlier as Marquez has generally competed in weight classes that a far higher percentage of active professionals can make and which have housed deeper pools of talent, but let's not forget that he also has slip ups to the likes of John (not a robbery however much Marquez moans about it) and Norwood (ok, that one was close, but hardly a travesty). Neither of those guys are going to be troubling anyone's Featherweight lists any time soon and Lopez didn't have any of those kinds of slip ups in his whole career, never mind his prime. Marquez also came desperately close to losing to Julian Wheeler, lest we forget.

I'm not a great fan of Calzaghe either, but my point is that if you ignore skills (which are secondary to achievements and opposition in any case) and just look at the cold, hard facts and results, he and Lopez aren't separated by a great deal. On that basis I think it's fair to question if Lopez benefits too much from the eye test.

Personally I place a greater emphasis on the eye test than most. I feel too much emphasis is placed on the record book possibly because it is so easy and quick to analyse a fighters ledger and make a  conclusion.  

With Clazaghe it is a case of 'ifs buts and maybes'  though I still believe Clazaghe is the best British talent I have seen in the last 30 years. I also think he would have been very competitive against the top guys at SMW he didn't fight in his prime.

Calzaghe polarises opinion and that can happen with a home fighter. Sometimes a fighter from abroad can seem that bit more exotic.

Bottom line though and the reason for my post is that watching a fighter on film and using that as a significant component in assessing his standing has become underutilised since the internet and Boxrec in my opinion.

A couple of the more knowledgable posters on here should get together and write a book. Could be a good advert for the site and make you a bit of money.

I'm a good writer.

I use the eye test to rate fighters if their records and achievements are similar and hard to split, Strongy.

Going purely on records then Calzaghe isn't far off being Ricardo's equal - very narrow edge to Lopez, I guess, as he took titles / defended them in fighters' back yards and often trounced his nearest rivals. Calzaghe shores it up a bit by virtue of his most significant opponents being, I feel, marginally better fighters than Lopez's.

In terms of the skills and ability each man showcased, or how aesthetically pleasing they were, then Lopez definitely has a considerable edge over someone such as Calzaghe. His showings against Alex Sanchez and Petelo were superb (and he was ready for retirement against Petelo, too). Tina and Superfly also ushered me to his uppercut KO of Alla Vilamor which was a real piece of magic, too.

But if you lean too heavily towards how a fighter looks then you might end up thinking that Michael Nunn was in a totally different class to Carlos Monzon, or that Henry Armstrong wasn't as good as Wilfred Benitez. It matters, but not as much as longevity, who you've beaten, what you achieved etc.

After a bit of reflection I'm happy to keep Lopez in that all-time great bracket, don't get me wrong. I just think he's perhaps a unique case in terms of how he's achieved that status and how he's rated. He was exceptionally talented and put on a never-ending string of exemplary performances against an overall good rank of opposition, all things considered - but he is perhaps a bit thin on the ground when it comes to elite-level wins for an all-time great.

88Chris05 wrote:
Jeff, I see what you're saying when it comes to the names a few lb north of Lopez not being as glaring as the ones above Calzaghe. But Gonzalez, Carbajal, Yuh, Arbachakov, Johnson etc were all still better and more highly-regarded fighters than Alvarez and for a guy who gets an automatic pass in to the all-time great club - which Calzaghe doesn't - you could argue that Lopez didn't show enough inclination to chase those better opponents and spent too long at 105. Granted, a 7 lb jump up to Flyweight might have been a stretch for a wee fella like Ricardo, but Gonzalez and Carbajal would have made him big money and their class has never been in doubt.

Chris, I've alluded to it in my old thread, but I really don't know why Lopez didn't chase the fights a few pound north of Straweight. I can't (refuse!) to believe that he was somehow intimidated. Maybe King wanted him to keep laying a relative golden egg down at Straw, or maybe the others just weren't interested due to seeing how destructive and talented Lopez was? Again, unlikely, but you never know. It's a shame as I think Lopez would probably be too much for all of them. I actually think Johnson would have been the trickiest fight but that's just my opinion.

I'm not sure Carbajal or Gonzalez were much better than Alvarez (around the first Lopez fight, anyway). More highly regarded, for sure, but mainly through fighting each other. I reckon Alvarez would have had a great shout at beating both of them, with Carbajal being the easiest of the two.

I have to agree with Strongy here (shudder), I probably give more credence to the 'eye test' than some. One can quite literally pull every record apart bar a handful of fighters and it's a pretty dry exercise. Records and 'eyes' should be combined to make a judgement, but it depends how much stock you place in one aspect. This sounds terribly pompous, but the kind of 'hardcore' fans that populate sites like this must be watching/have watched an awful lot of boxing compared to Joe Public and we shouldn't be ashamed to use our eyes in judgement of fighters. Having said that, I haven't been in a boxing ring so maybe that logic, coming from me, is flawed. Ho hum.

Calzaghe probably deserves to be somewhere in and around Lopez.

Agreed Chris that Calzaghe was not the most aesthetic fighter, although not bad and he had all the punches in his arsenal before his hands deteriorated, but he must get a lot of credit for his work rate which was also pretty accurate and not just flailing or bullying.

Good points, Tina. Maybe I am getting a bit too easily seduced by Carbajal and Gonzalez's trilogy when comparing them directly to Alvarez, and I agree with your past points that Lopez would likely have beaten the pair of them. Carbajal nowhere near as polished and a bit crude when compared to Lopez (it's not as if Ricardo didn't know how to deal with power or sluggers, either), and Gonzalez a better pure boxer but prone to lapses as the first Carbajal war demonstrated. Something to think about. I still think the pair of them were better than Alvarez, but maybe it's not as clear-cut as I initially thought.

I think Lopez's team missed a trick in deciding to go to the cards in the first Alvarez fight. Lopez wanted to fight on and was up off his stool and ready for round eight as you'll know, but his corner obviously thought they'd banked enough rounds to get the technical decision. A bad miscalculation because the way I saw it, you couldn't have it by more than a point to either guy at that stage so the draw was always a real possibility - but I felt that Lopez had won most of the rounds after being decked in the second and would have pulled away as the fight progressed, as he seemed to be getting a read on what Alvarez was doing and was starting to land his left hook with regularity. As a side note, that right hand which decked Lopez may well have completely sparked a few other Strawweights.

Still, Lopez got his most defining win (close, but still a very much deserved Lopez win in my opinion) in the rematch and it turned out to be a great fight, so it all worked out in the end.....Unless you're Rosendo Alvarez.

DDGO2 wrote:I'm a good writer.

I aren't.

Like Calzaghe, I don't imagine Lopez makes an all-time top 100. As excellent a technician as he was, he just didn't have the fights.

I wouldn't rank him higher than about 5 foot 5.

Ok, it's shortist but I've always had a problem getting excited with anything below bantam and certainly below flyweight. Excepting kylie maybe.

I'm obviously not alone as Lopez and galaxy etc tend to get a little short changed.  Boom boom.  Generally, I find fights at the lowest weights are like watching two wasps squabbling over an ice cream. Setting aside my personal bigotry about the aesthetics, there's the size of the talent pool. Although there are clearly plenty of fighters from certain countries who hit these weight classes, its not uncommon to fight for a world title with less than 10 fights behind you. Does anyone have figures on the numbers of professional fighters in each weight category? It might give a better reflection on the relative merits of say Lopez v Calzaghe.

Also to some degree, there is not just the size factor, but the fact that there are a limited number of uk or US fighters at these weights, with many titles being fought in south east Asia... they never get the exposure over here, and from our perspective they feel like regional belts rather than world belts.

I'm stating the obvious really as to why they are maybe under appreciated. Whether that's fair or not is another matter.

Ultimately, whilst you have to admire his exemplary record, I personally can't get excited by lopez. Its probably just shortism on my part... Sorry tina. Not that I imagine the opinion of someone so prejudiced, means anything to you .