Genuine sub 126lb greats

Carrying on from a discussion from a previous thread, who are the genuinely great boxers who largely competed below Featherweight, encompassing an absurd 6 divisions, it's often hard to differentiate between them.

With weight hopping being more prevalent lower down it doesn't lend itself it prolonged dominance of one division and often involves defences against boxers either moving up or down in weight when it fact it makes no real difference.

Miguel Canto, Pascual Perez, Khaosai Galaxy, Pancho Villa, Jimmy Wilde, Olivares immediately spring to mind.

Adding to Haz I've got Rigondeaux, Wilfredo Gomez, Carlos Zarate, Eder Jofre, Donaire, Vic Darchinyan, Ricardo Lopez, Ivan Calderon, Fighting Harada.

Bit soon for Rigo (and I wouldn't go for Donaire - and defo not Darchinyan).

Morales, Barrera, Terry McGovern, Manuel Ortiz, Panama Al Brown, George Dixon.

Ever?

Wilde, LaBarba, Villa, Perez, McGovern, George Dixon, Jimmy Barry, Pete Herman, Panama Al Brown, Manuel Ortiz, Jofre, Harada, Gomez, Galaxy, Zarate, Canto, Ricardo Lopez are all-time greats for sure.

Maybe Benny Lynch, Calderon, maybe Fenech, maybe Olivares, maybe Laciar. Donaire just shy, likewise Peter Kane, Rinty Monaghan, Chitalada, Carbajal/Humberto Gonzalez and one or two others.

Wilfredo Vazquez? Johnny Tapia?

Big difference between true great and highly accomplished practitioner. Honestly couldn't put Tapia, Vazquez or Darchinyan at the same level as some of the real legends.

Harada I find an odd one, easy to say his greatness relies on Jofre but it kind of really does, without those wins which are admittedly great (personally thought he lost the first fight) there's not much there. Screwed by Pep in his later career but his overall record is a little thin for me to consider a guaranteed all time great.

Would also put Brown, Ortiz and Zarate in the maybe list but have a feeling i'm being overly harsh.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Harada I find an odd one, easy to say his greatness relies on Jofre but it kind of really does, without those wins which are admittedly great (personally thought he lost the first fight) there's not much there. Screwed by Pep in his later career but his overall record is a little thin for me to consider a guaranteed all time great.

Would also put Brown, Ortiz and Zarate in the maybe list but have a feeling i'm being overly harsh.

Depends how high you draw the line.

That trio are probably in the top five bantamweights all time. Great fighters.

Bantamweight is probably the weakest of the original eight weight divisions so I don't necessarily think being great at that weight makes you great overall. Jofre for instance is a bonafide great but he's the divisions consensus number one, does he match up to the other seven; Ali/Louis, Charles/Moore, Monzon/Greb, Robinson, Duran/Leonard, Pep and Wilde?

It's tough, since opposition for some of the great fighters at these weights has sometimes been disappointingly mediocre. Hammersmith mentions Harada; we might, in this one respect, also have to shine the spotlight on the great Wilde. All due props for his records and his hitting ability is probably second to no other fighter ever, in a pound for pound sense. However, who is his best victim? Tough to say that there are any who would come up to the level of a Zamora, for example and certainly none at the level of a Zarate (Gomez) or a Jofre (Harada) On the other hand, his two best opponents were Herman and Villa He was right at the end of his career for the Villa fight, but for Herman, he was stepping up to fight a fully fledged bantam. This was something that he had done often, reputedly KOing lightweights with ease, but Herman was in a different league to these guys and gave Jimmy the worst hiding of his career.

I've no desire to rewrite history here, but it is a fact that almst all of the great little guys can be nit-picked at if one is so inclined.

I make Jofre the equal of Pep and ahead of Wilde, Hammersmith, in a pound for pound sense. It should be said though that his extraordinary comeback at 126 is the reason that he is allowed such an exalted status. If you're talking purely about the man as a bantam, I'd say that you're probably spot on.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Bantamweight is probably the weakest of the original eight weight divisions so I don't necessarily think being great at that weight makes you great overall. Jofre for instance is a bonafide great but he's the divisions consensus number one, does he match up to the other seven; Ali/Louis, Charles/Moore, Monzon/Greb, Robinson, Duran/Leonard, Pep and Wilde?

Not for me but he was undoubtedly a great fighter. Jofre was as talented as anyone before or since - I just feel his quality of opposition lets him down in comparison to most of the names listed above.

Would have to Pal Moore and Joe Lynch then it's the best of the British Flyweights; Lee, Smith and Symonds. For someone of Wilde's size to be able to beat Moore and Lynch is some achievement but you are right he does highlight the issues with the little men, the opposition is never there.

hazharrison wrote:Bit soon for Rigo (and I wouldn't go for Donaire - and defo not Darchinyan).

Vic is just a personal favourite I guess, but Donaire belongs IMO. His only loss below feather is to Rigo which is nothing to cry about. He's still technically a five weight world champion. Rigo is just unfortunately getting old, which sucks because he is fantastic.

Can we really include Morales and Barerra when so much of their good work was done at feather and above?

Yojimbonufc wrote:

hazharrison wrote:Bit soon for Rigo (and I wouldn't go for Donaire - and defo not Darchinyan).

Vic is just a personal favourite I guess, but Donaire belongs IMO. His only loss below feather is to Rigo which is nothing to cry about. He's still technically a five weight world champion. Rigo is just unfortunately getting old, which sucks because he is fantastic.

Can we really include Morales and Barerra when so much of their good work was done at feather and above?

The two finest super bantams in history next to Gomez. Both did enough there to warrant inclusion (including their first - and best - titanic match).

Fair enough on Morales but MAB's first significant win was at feather against Naz.

Yojimbonufc wrote:Fair enough on Morales but MAB's first significant win was at feather against Naz.

Can't agree there: wonderful display against Kennedy McKinney and he deserved the nod in that epic first bout with Morales.

Barrera was a better fighter as a featherweight but the young, Chavez-like terror was one hell of a fighter. Better than Morales for me.

Mckinney, theres a guy thrown to the wolves.

I think Harada is one of the most underrated fighters of all time personally, Hammersmith. Think he's being sold very short if you're going to argue that his record isn't much to write home about with Jofre.

Tends not to matter too much on that front, anyway, because he did beat Jofre at the end of the day, at least once. First fight was close enough to go either way by a slither or be a draw, but there's no dispute about the rematch. Over the two fights Harada was the better man in my opinion. I know Jofre wasn't that young for a Bantam by then, that he apparently wasn't making weight as easily as he'd previously done, that he was having management problems etc. But you'd think Jofre was totally shot or something the way some people talk. His performance in the first fight was actually very, very good, for instance - Harada matched him basically all the way, though. Two fantastic victories.

Stops very possibly an all-time top ten Flyweight in Kingpetch to win that title and I thought it was a poor verdict which took the title from him in their rematch. Nevertheless, he then beats Jofre, generally regarded as the greatest 118 pounder of the lot, two times over and accumulates defences against some opponents that were good enough for the brilliant Brazilian, so surely good enough for anyone else such as Medel and Caraballo, as well as an excellent win over Rudkin who can count himself unlucky that he was around in such a shark tank of an era at Bantamweight. Prior to all that, victims like Ebihara, who was a future champion, and Aoki who was consistently-ranked etc.

Obviously the way he got outclassed at Rose's hands demonstrates that, as an all-round boxer, he wasn't at the same level as a Rigondeaux, a Sanchez or a Ricardo Lopez. Rose himself is one of the better Bantam champions and produced one of the best all-round boxing displays of any little man to beat Harada like that. But if it hadn't been for the ridiculous hometowner Famechon, another superior (going on the eye test) and bigger boxer who he was able to find a way to compete with, Harada would have become the first man to complete the 'little man' treble of being champion at Fly, Bantam and Feather.

He was also involved in some of the best little man classics of all time as well - the Kingpetch rematch, the first fight against Jofre, his win over Rudkin and the thriller against Famechon first time out. One of the most exciting and entertaining fighters of his generation.

Disappointing that he disappeared after the bad defeat to Famechon in the rematch, though, given how young he still was. Touch of the Fenech about that - denied history by poor / bent officials, expected to do an even more emphatic job in the rematch but instead find themselves getting trounced and then fading away in to obscurity, maybe because of a combination of the injusices of the first fights taking the edge off them mentally and their aggressive, all-action styles making them age and wear out quicker than other fighters. I guess it comes down to whether you want to focus on him being out of the game by the age of twenty-seven, or focus on the fact that there were seven years or so beforehand of consistently high-level winning interrupted by only a few defeats (usually against men he'd already beaten or who he'd later avenge against).

Seems unfair to me that Jofre can make the top ten / twenty if Harada can't crack a top fifty, given that he'd have been Jofre's best win and that his career wins are actually better than Jofre's collectively (including over the great man himself), offset by the fact that Jofre was the more skilled, slightly more consistent and longer-reigning of the pair. In my eyes, it's only Pacquiao who goes in front of Harada amongst all Asian fighters. Genuine pound for pound great for my money.

I had completely overlooked the Kingpetch fights, it is infuriating when such blatantly wrong decisions are made such as the first Famechon fight and I never know how much to rewrite history. Kingpetch twice, Jofre twice and Famechon as it should have been would be a brilliant set of wins over the little man big three divisions.

How would Pacquiao rate below 126lbs, he had a few decent wins like Saasakul and Ledwaba but also those two shocking losses, falls well short of greatness until he stepped up to face the legendary Mexicans.

Some excellent debate on here sorry to spoil it

A guy that's pretty close to great for me and I grew up watching him was Jeff Chandler a quality boxer and technician and WBA Bantam champion ..............Made ten defences of his Bantamweight crown....

Beat an unbeaten Solis twice and the irrepressible Jorge Lucan who later went on to extend Pedrosa at feather.........

Belongs in the same category for me as Vasquez types.......Who never really impressed me.........I thought he lost to an old Canizales..

Not in the league of some of the aforementioned though..