In the grand scheme of things, Is the fight on May 2nd really the biggest in the last 25 years ?

First topic message reminder :

I will mention I'm thoroughly looking forward to the fight and will be watching (and paying PPV) come May 2nd. The hype has already reached fever pitch but everything is immensely over-hyped these days (You just have to look at those spoilt brats of the EPL and football in general) so in the grand scheme how big is this fight not as a "PPV numbers" so it must be a huge event but if we strip it back on a Boxing only level, remember Floyd is what 38 and Pacman 36/37ish. Ok so some fights in the last 25 years which have been as big/better (boxing matchups) than the upcoming superfight, in no particular order.

November 1994
James Toney vs Roy Jones Jnr..
Two men were considered to be two of the top fighters in the sport at the time sporting unbeaten records.

September 1999
Oscar de La Hoya vs Felix Trinidad
again two unbeaten foes in their prime both excelling in their divisions.

September 1993
Julio Cesar Chavez vs Pernell Whitaker
Again the two top men in the sport , Chavez on a 80+ fight winning streak usually stopping these opponents in the process against the extremely skilful Whitaker.

September 2001
Felix Trinidad vs Bernard Hopkins
Hopkins 12 consecutive defences against the rampaging unbeaten knockout artist and P4P king Felix Trinidad

Any others ?

Cheers, Rodders

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

88Chris05 wrote:Well both were above their best weight really, Haz. Whitaker was an excellent Welter, but an out of this world Lightweight. The Pernell fight was Chavez's first fight at Welter (albeit he was only 142 and Whitaker 145) and he didn't try his hand there again until he challenged Oscar in a 1998 rematch, by which point he was badly, badly faded. Welterweight certainly favoured Whitaker more as an individual, but watching the actual fight and taking in to account their styles and the fact that both had moved up from lower weights to get there, I don't think it really had any bearing on how things went, as I said. They were comparable in size (both at their absolute best as Lightweights), but Whitaker's style and ability was always going to give him a better chance of competing higher up the weight scale than Chavez's.

Put them at 135 and 140 and I think Whitaker still has his way with Chavez. Obviously I can't recall the time leading up to the fight, but I've read and seen plenty of stuff from the build up as well as watching / scoring the fight about six or seven times, and weight was an issue which never really cropped up at all in the discussions about it. I guess it's another hindsight thing - Whitaker had still been a Lightweight less than two years beforehand, and many at the time probably didn't expect him to defend the Welter title for as long as he did. Understandable that in later years people point to the weight a little more, but as I said, it was still a superfight in terms of how meaningful a match up it was.

So Whittaker/Chavez was above their best weights........Disagree that Chavez was prime..........In his thirties and been ten years a champion already...

Holy was 37

Hagler was past his prime against Hearns........

You could say Ali's legs had started to go when he fought Frazier...

According to Haz's criteria not sure there has ever been a superfight !!

Not my criteria. Steve Farhood's.

Hagler was still in his pomp, as was Ali.

And I just gave you a dozen examples.

It's okay Haz I'm doing us both a favor and sticking you on my foe list.........

I honestly think you're not all there...........It's laughable..

I actually think Rigondeaux-Donaire was right up there in that respect. Very similar in its set up to Jones-Toney; the celebrated amateur being tipped for massive things having his big acid test and first taste of the elite as a pro, against a seasoned professional who'd been a fixture in the pound for pound ratings for a good while.

Even right down to their styles to a degree, too - the speed and movement of Jones / Rigondeaux against the experience and power of Toney / Donaire is how many saw the fights beforehand. And like Toney's defeat to Jones, Donaire's loss to Rigondeaux has resulted in a pretty fast fall from grace.

88Chris05 wrote:I actually think Rigondeaux-Donaire was right up there in that respect. Very similar in its set up to Jones-Toney; the celebrated amateur being tipped for massive things having his big acid test and first taste of the elite as a pro, against a seasoned professional who'd been a fixture in the pound for pound ratings for a good while.

Even right down to their styles to a degree, too - the speed and movement of Jones / Rigondeaux against the experience and power of Toney / Donaire is how many saw the fights beforehand. And like Toney's defeat to Jones, Donaire's loss to Rigondeaux has resulted in a pretty fast fall from grace.

Was Donaire a great fighter? Is Rigondeaux?

Jones-Toney should have been so much more. Both that, Oscar-Trinidad and Lewis-Holyfield were damp squibs (only Jones being a blameless party).

Donaire was certainly a great fighter, think that is pretty much beyond question but with Rigondeaux he may not end up with the required resume but again is definitely a great talent.

You can always find an excuse why fighter A beat fighter B, even with Leonard and Hearns you can say the latter was better at 154lbs which he probably was but does that stop it being a 'superfight'? Definitely not but you'll be hard pushed to find any victory that doesn't come with a question mark.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Donaire was certainly a great fighter, think that is pretty much beyond question but with Rigondeaux he may not end up with the required resume but again is definitely a great talent.

You can always find an excuse why fighter A beat fighter B, even with Leonard and Hearns you can say the latter was better at 154lbs which he probably was but does that stop it being a 'superfight'? Definitely not but you'll be hard pushed to find any victory that doesn't come with a question mark.

I'm not convinced Donaire was a great fighter. Super skilled and a great talent but falls a bit short for me unless someone can convince me otherwise?

Na, Hearns was at his best at 147. If he wasn't, he was still close to his best (which is good enough).

Despite the fact that it's much, much later than ideal, this fight is still the most significant fight since Tyson-Spinks. "Biggest" - who knows how you measure that? With PPV and people being able to name their own price for tickets, merchandise etc, not to mention inflation, etc etc, it would be surprising if this one weren't the largest in pure dollar terms.

I'm interpreting biggest as most significant, however. I'm surprised to see Truss place Curry-McCrory among the top three in terms of significance in his life-time. A genuine unification battle, yes, but surely not to be compared with Hearns-Leonard in terms of the expectation, the pick 'em nature of the odds at the time and the stir it created outside boxing. My top three (since 1966, then) would be 1) Ali-Frazier, which will never lose its place as Number 1. The modern-day equivalent of Frank Sinatra won't have to gain entrance to Pacquaio/Mayweather by blagging a gig as a photographer for a leading magazine - he'll get the tickets he wants. Nor will Leonard DiCaprio be invited to do the round by round summaries, nor will the build-up to any other fight ever be front page news around the world again. Second would probably be Hearns-Leonard I as mentioned above. Third Tyson-Spinks: There was the Tyson factor on its own, which was huge. There was also the fact that it settled what in hindsight looks an idiotic question - who was the true heavyweight champ? Various media men rendered themselves forever obsolete by seriously picking Spinks, with the result that the fever of anticipation was huge. The biggest division and boxing's biggest star since Ali made this another fight that got non-boxing fans talking.

Don't think that any of the fights involving Jones, Toney, DLH, Hopkins, Chavez etc etc have managed this trick. Second incarnation Tyson (after he got out of jail) didn't quite generate the same buzz as 86-90, either. Honestly believe that if Floyd-Manny had been made at the end of 2011, say, that only Ali-Frazier would rank ahead of it in significance. As it is, most significant in the past 25 years (27, for me)? Hell, yes.

Hearns two best performances were at 154lbs, the devastation of Duran and the more controlled outboxing of Benitez.

As for Donaire, the knockouts of Montiel and Darchinyan were a thing of beauty, he was quietly efficient against Nishioka before turning on the style at a time he was suffering with a bit of hand trouble. After both the Vasquez and Mathebula fights where he was good without being great his hands were a bloody mess, not sure the illegal but accepted way his hands were wrapped helped but that's here nor there.

He was brutal against the more than competent Arce and Sydorenko, the footwork and the timing of that left hand was majestic at his best, the straight right hand wasn't half bad either if a little overlooked. At his very best he was a world class talent who was about as exciting as it got and like GGG now wanted the best and wanted to knock them out. Was in a more fortunate position where the the little men are more than happy to face anyone unless your name is Abner Mares.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

88Chris05 wrote:Well both were above their best weight really, Haz. Whitaker was an excellent Welter, but an out of this world Lightweight. The Pernell fight was Chavez's first fight at Welter (albeit he was only 142 and Whitaker 145) and he didn't try his hand there again until he challenged Oscar in a 1998 rematch, by which point he was badly, badly faded. Welterweight certainly favoured Whitaker more as an individual, but watching the actual fight and taking in to account their styles and the fact that both had moved up from lower weights to get there, I don't think it really had any bearing on how things went, as I said. They were comparable in size (both at their absolute best as Lightweights), but Whitaker's style and ability was always going to give him a better chance of competing higher up the weight scale than Chavez's.

Put them at 135 and 140 and I think Whitaker still has his way with Chavez. Obviously I can't recall the time leading up to the fight, but I've read and seen plenty of stuff from the build up as well as watching / scoring the fight about six or seven times, and weight was an issue which never really cropped up at all in the discussions about it. I guess it's another hindsight thing - Whitaker had still been a Lightweight less than two years beforehand, and many at the time probably didn't expect him to defend the Welter title for as long as he did. Understandable that in later years people point to the weight a little more, but as I said, it was still a superfight in terms of how meaningful a match up it was.

So Whittaker/Chavez was above their best weights........Disagree that Chavez was prime..........In his thirties and been ten years a champion already...

Holy was 37

Hagler was past his prime against Hearns........

You could say Ali's legs had started to go when he fought Frazier...

According to Haz's criteria not sure there has ever been a superfight !!

Using the criteria Farhood used, Haz will remember more than me but there really wasn't many.. Which is quite sad considering , I don't fully abide to the benchmarks Farhood set but a lot of is legitimate.

Cheers, Rodders

I guess it's possible that Donaire was given a bit more credit and plaudits in some corners than he deserved before his decline, Haz, perhaps because he's always seemed to embody everything that's good and that the fans love about boxing, as Hammersmith alluded to; exciting style, big hitter, ambitious as hell, chased the best without the usual, drawn-out 'negotiating' that we're used to and on top of that has always come across as a personable, down-to-earth character.

I posed the question a year or so back whether Donaire's record overall really outstrips, say, Jeff Fenech's. Maybe it does, but if so it can't be by much of a distance, and Fenech usually falls in to the very, very good, but not great bracket for most people.

Will admit that before Rigondeaux, I never had any hesitation in placing Donaire in the truly great class. I was very surprised that he was such a heavy favourite over the Cuban and stressed that, although I picked Donaire to get him eventually, I disagreed with those who said it was going to be a cakewalk as I felt that Rigondeaux winning would only be a very mild upset in my eyes. But even if he did lose, I just couldn't envisage Donaire losing the way he did, being made to look so flat, uninterested and one-dimensional.

I guess that ties in with another kind of complacency I and I suspect others had with Donaire. Despite looking a bit more workmanlike at 122 after flattening Montiel, many of us kind of took it for granted that, whatever the result, there'd still be plenty of defining moments and good wins for Donaire after the Rigondeaux fight - but so far, there haven't been any. In some ways it's as if he was being awarded greatness points in good faith on top of what he'd already achieved which, while extremely impressive, maybe wouldn't have qualified in outright greatness on its own. I just don't think anyone predicted such a steep and sudden decline.

To me Chris it comes down to whether we think Gomez, Zarate and Pintor are great, the greatness of all three is almost unquestioned.

They all had long reigns as champion but as is the case every time with long standing champions the level of opposition was embarrassingly bad at times but being Mexican and Puerta Rican greats we tend to ignore such things. With the exception of Zarate who quit after the disgraceful decision against Pintor the other two also had an abrupt fall from grace, lost against the best man they ever fought and relied even more on their knockout punch.

Pintors record is not that of a great fighter so i'll happily place Donaire above him, the other two are a bit more borderline but again Donaire's series of wins did represent the best of his era, he would have been hounded were he defending against men with losing records or against no hopers.

I have no real issue with Donaire being consider very very good instead of great but a lot of the accepted greats would need their reputations shifted down a notch too.

88Chris05 wrote:I guess it's possible that Donaire was given a bit more credit and plaudits in some corners than he deserved before his decline, Haz, perhaps because he's always seemed to embody everything that's good and that the fans love about boxing, as Hammersmith alluded to; exciting style, big hitter, ambitious as hell, chased the best without the usual, drawn-out 'negotiating' that we're used to and on top of that has always come across as a personable, down-to-earth character.

I posed the question a year or so back whether Donaire's record overall really outstrips, say, Jeff Fenech's. Maybe it does, but if so it can't be by much of a distance, and Fenech usually falls in to the very, very good, but not great bracket for most people.

Will admit that before Rigondeaux, I never had any hesitation in placing Donaire in the truly great class. I was very surprised that he was such a heavy favourite over the Cuban and stressed that, although I picked Donaire to get him eventually, I disagreed with those who said it was going to be a cakewalk as I felt that Rigondeaux winning would only be a very mild upset in my eyes. But even if he did lose, I just couldn't envisage Donaire losing the way he did, being made to look so flat, uninterested and one-dimensional.

I guess that ties in with another kind of complacency I and I suspect others had with Donaire. Despite looking a bit more workmanlike at 122 after flattening Montiel, many of us kind of took it for granted that, whatever the result, there'd still be plenty of defining moments and good wins for Donaire after the Rigondeaux fight - but so far, there haven't been any. In some ways it's as if he was being awarded greatness points in good faith on top of what he'd already achieved which, while extremely impressive, maybe wouldn't have qualified in outright greatness on its own. I just don't think anyone predicted such a steep and sudden decline.

I think it's genuinely more difficult to gauge fighters these days, so much needs to be interpreted/sifted through.

Donaire looked like an other worldly talent at one point - when he knocked out Montiel, he appeared to be the second coming. He looked a bit flat in the subsequent few bouts, though, almost as though he was a tad bored of the sport.

I think he was a top fighter but not a great one. I guess there's time for him yet but those defeats to Rigo and Walters will take some coming back from.

Rodney wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

88Chris05 wrote:Well both were above their best weight really, Haz. Whitaker was an excellent Welter, but an out of this world Lightweight. The Pernell fight was Chavez's first fight at Welter (albeit he was only 142 and Whitaker 145) and he didn't try his hand there again until he challenged Oscar in a 1998 rematch, by which point he was badly, badly faded. Welterweight certainly favoured Whitaker more as an individual, but watching the actual fight and taking in to account their styles and the fact that both had moved up from lower weights to get there, I don't think it really had any bearing on how things went, as I said. They were comparable in size (both at their absolute best as Lightweights), but Whitaker's style and ability was always going to give him a better chance of competing higher up the weight scale than Chavez's.

Put them at 135 and 140 and I think Whitaker still has his way with Chavez. Obviously I can't recall the time leading up to the fight, but I've read and seen plenty of stuff from the build up as well as watching / scoring the fight about six or seven times, and weight was an issue which never really cropped up at all in the discussions about it. I guess it's another hindsight thing - Whitaker had still been a Lightweight less than two years beforehand, and many at the time probably didn't expect him to defend the Welter title for as long as he did. Understandable that in later years people point to the weight a little more, but as I said, it was still a superfight in terms of how meaningful a match up it was.

So Whittaker/Chavez was above their best weights........Disagree that Chavez was prime..........In his thirties and been ten years a champion already...

Holy was 37

Hagler was past his prime against Hearns........

You could say Ali's legs had started to go when he fought Frazier...

According to Haz's criteria not sure there has ever been a superfight !!

Using the criteria Farhood used, Haz will remember more than me but there really wasn't many.. Which is quite sad considering , I don't fully abide to the benchmarks Farhood set but a lot of is legitimate.

Cheers, Rodders

Yeah, it was the ones I listed with a few clagged on (think his list was 1999 - possibly an accompaniment to Lewis-Holyfield or Trinidad-Oscar).

If you're looking at an fight's impact, then that's something else again.

I don't think I'll ever experience the sense of anticipation I did before Holyfield vs Tyson 2, for example.

I wouldn't really say Pintor gets painted as a proper great, Hammersmith. Can't say I've ever seen him talked up as one, anyway.

Zarate's claims are worth examining, I agree. His heavy loss at Gomez's hands in particular is a noteworthy blotch on his record. I think the going up in weight argument often has reduced credibility when you're at such a low end of the weight scale in any case, but ultimately it's generally accepted that Gomez himself was really just a Bantam who didn't enjoy that extra bit of graft in training, and for whom the birth of the Super-Bantam division was a God-send. Any size difference between the pair was negligible, for me. For Zarate to get beaten like that against his best opponent, while smack bang in the middle of his prime and not really giving away any notable size advantages, he has to lose quite a bit of sway in the greatness stakes.

He was, though, the bonafide top man in one of the original weight classes for quite a few defences (if there was any doubt, he removed it when he trounced Zamora in thrilling style) and the model of consistency, that Gomez fight aside; as you've touched on, he beat Pintor by a good four rounds or so for me, so while I didn't have it the complete domination for Zarate that others did there's no way I can really count that as a true loss for him, either. He accounted for a couple of very good fighters, a few decent ones along with a few journeyman ones while champion - but no great ones. The one great fighter he did fight while in his best years trounced him......Certainly a legitimate Bantamweight great, but maybe not an all-time one?

I think Gomez has enough to make his claim unquestionable, though. I think we can all agree that Zarate at the very least was darn good - the way Gomez beat him suggests he belongs to a higher level, namely the great one. Got the tanning of a lifetime from Sanchez, but in this case the size differential was notable on the night (again, Gomez could / should easily have been a career 118 pounder rather than 122 and Sanchez was a tall, powerfully-built Feather) and as we know, when Sanchez was good, he was basically unbelievable. He had one of those nights against Gomez, but Wilfredo still rebounded with the best win (along with the Zarate one) of his Super-Bantam reign against Pintor shortly afterwards and then got it right in his second crack at 126 lb honours against Laporte. It took one of the best Featherweights of time in the form of Nelson to dethrone him - and Gomez was ahead in that fight before eventually getting chopped down.

A combination of poor training, dabbling with drugs (which eventually got him jailed in 1994) and simply being too small for the Super-Feathers saw him get his title there via a gift against Lockridge and then lose it to a journeyman in Layne, but I think everyone acknowledges that he was a worn out fighter by then and those performances aren't reflective of his peak level. Much to my surprise, Truss pointed out to me once that KO magainze actually picked Layne to beat Gomez - it was still a bit of an upset, but that was how badly he'd faded by then.

I agree that Donaire definitely should be higher than someone like Pintor, and probably Zarate as well. Think I'd keep Gomez higher than him for the time being, though.

I think we're seeing the Pintor and Zarate situation pretty much the same, i've seen the pair both proclaimed as greats and amongst Mexico's best, Zarate is for sure more deserving of such acclaim.

Gomez does have Pintor and Zarate but are those wins any better than Donaire's over Darchinyan, Montiel and Nishioka, there's not much in it for me when you consider weight range. I also see their losses similarly, no shame at all losing to Sanchez or Rigondeaux, understandably Sanchez will be more fondly remembered but both were/are world class talents.

Below Featherweight it becomes a minefield with too many weight classes bunched together, again Gomez and Donaire both had an extended period when they were the best in the world below 126lbs which the other two didn't. I am a big fan of Donaire, he epitomises everything right with boxing, there's no excuses with him, he just gets in the ring against the best and used to offer unparalleled excitement.

It's almost blasphemy to say it but i'd probably throw Olivares in the Pintor and Zarate group too.

I'd put Olivares above Pintor but below Zarate. On reflection, while he's not a shoe-in or easy induction, I'd still make Zarate a proper all-time great....Just. Jofre's my number one Bantam of all time but I'd argue he doesn't actually have a win at that weight to best Zarate's one over Zamora. There's a real claim that Zarate could be Jofre's nearest rival to the crown of being the best-ever 118 pounder, so while I probably have him in lower regard than I used to, he's still a genuine great for me. Still think he's a fair bit behind Gomez, though.

Olivares was the most popular and revered Mexican champion before Chavez came along - he was immensely popular in the States, too, which probably helped account for the odd undeserved title shot later in his career at Featherweight when he was getting over the hill. Fair enough to suggest that his reputation, phenomenal punching and status as a Mexican hero helps mask the holes in his record.

Looking back, the thrashings he handed out to Rose and Rudkin were incredible results; Rose was good enough to hand out a classic boxing lesson to Harada, for instance, a fighter I hold in higher regard than Olivares. Rudkin gave Harada and Rose just about all they could handle himself.

From that kind of start it's easy to see why he was being talked up as the greatest Bantam of all time as early as he was, but that first Castillo fight, while a great one, seemed to dent his confidence after struggling so unexpectedly. He never really got back to utterly destroying all before him like he'd previously been doing after that, and the puzzling losses began to accumulate.

I've been looking for the Olivares-Kotey fight at Featherweight for years as I've heard it's an absolute screamer. Annoyingly, I've not come across it yet. Has anyone else here seen it?

In terms of P4P greats facing each other I'm guessing it must be the biggest fight in this regard since Leonard v Duran.

Biggest commercial fight. Not sure about most significant. The fight will be massive but everyone knows its two boxers past their best cashing in before retirement. I think it will be remembered for a lot of the wrong reasons, unless it turns out to be a classic contest.

Mayweather v de la Hoya was huge at the time. In hindsight, barely worth mentioning.

Leonard-Duran (both fights, in their different ways) is a big omission on my part from the list, strongy. Hugely anticipated - would say that Leonard Hearns, the following year would qualify, and that Tyson was seen at the time as a coming P4P great when he fought Spinks, who was already in that category.

Overall, though, there aren't many to hold a candle to the present hoopla. Once again, I just wish to God that they could have got round to this when it would have done boxing even more good.

I was thinking along the lines that both Leonard and Duran are often listed in the Top 15 ATG P4P fighters.

When the dust settles Manny and Floyd are likely to both be comfortably within the Top 40 P4P'ers of all time. Having two fighters so highly considered in the P4P lists fighting each other seems a rarity.

88Chris05 wrote:I'd put Olivares above Pintor but below Zarate. On reflection, while he's not a shoe-in or easy induction, I'd still make Zarate a proper all-time great....Just. Jofre's my number one Bantam of all time but I'd argue he doesn't actually have a win at that weight to best Zarate's one over Zamora. There's a real claim that Zarate could be Jofre's nearest rival to the crown of being the best-ever 118 pounder, so while I probably have him in lower regard than I used to, he's still a genuine great for me. Still think he's a fair bit behind Gomez, though.

Olivares was the most popular and revered Mexican champion before Chavez came along - he was immensely popular in the States, too, which probably helped account for the odd undeserved title shot later in his career at Featherweight when he was getting over the hill. Fair enough to suggest that his reputation, phenomenal punching and status as a Mexican hero helps mask the holes in his record.

Looking back, the thrashings he handed out to Rose and Rudkin were incredible results; Rose was good enough to hand out a classic boxing lesson to Harada, for instance, a fighter I hold in higher regard than Olivares. Rudkin gave Harada and Rose just about all they could handle himself.

From that kind of start it's easy to see why he was being talked up as the greatest Bantam of all time as early as he was, but that first Castillo fight, while a great one, seemed to dent his confidence after struggling so unexpectedly. He never really got back to utterly destroying all before him like he'd previously been doing after that, and the puzzling losses began to accumulate.

I've been looking for the Olivares-Kotey fight at Featherweight for years as I've heard it's an absolute screamer. Annoyingly, I've not come across it yet. Has anyone else here seen it?

I think that's how you have to view olivares chris. A star that shone brightly then waned. His was a benitez/Tyson/curry type career. He was only mid 20's  when he lost the bantam title and despite flattering to deceive on occasion he was never a featherweight. I remember watching a bit of his fight with Danny Lopez... Lopez looked at least a weight class above him. Haven't seen olivares kotey I'm afraid... Maybe the olivares fans ripped up the tape in the riot afterwards.