The original Julio Cesar Chavez - where do we all stand on him in relation to other greats?

Afternoon lads, hope all is well.

There's been a lot of talk about the younger Julio Cesar Chavez over the past few weeks, so maybe it's time to switch focus over to his old man, the original 'JC Superstar' and certainly the best.

I hope the two of them don't mind my name dropping, but in particular, the thoughts of two posters on here in recent weeks has made me think that, perhaps, we need an article on the matter to clear things up and see if we can reach some kind of unanimity. Our own Super D Boon has pointed out, a few times, that he feels that Julio Snr is a somewhat overrated fighter whose statistics are a gross (and false) exaggeration of his true abilities, and who was fortunate to meet, over and over again, opponents who allowed him to fight to his strengths. On the other hand, Rodney has been seen to argue that Chavez was, in fact, a technical monster, a true great by whichever measuring theory you wish to use and one who doesn't deserve the sort of question marks which Boon has alluded to hanging over him or his career. Rodney's comments, in fact, seemed to indicate that Chavez is in danger of becoming underrated by the masses, if anything.

Oddly, I found myself agreeing with both of them, in some degree. If you take all of boxing's greats (as in, those whose names are synonymous with the sport), then Chavez was arguably the most one-dimensional of them all, with all of his greatest victories coming against those who met him head on (well, almost all of them). At the same time, however, I have usually found room for him inside my top twenty pound for pound fighters of all time, albeit only just scraping in to that company.

But this begs the question - can we have it both ways? Isn't it a totally contradictory - and nonsensical - compromise by me to suggest that a man who needed things so heavily stacked in his favour from time to time can belong amongst the likes of Sandy Saddler, Willie Pep, Archie Moore and Alexis Arguello?

With all of this in mind, I decided to revisit Chavez's career - his highs, as well as his lows. And I must admit, the first thing which struck me was how Chzvez was not nearly as dominant as a Super-Featherweight as I first remembered. A cursory glance at Chavez's 130 lb tenure would indicate, from the outset, that he was a Supe-Feather to rival the likes of Floyd Mayweather, Alexis Arguello and Azumah Nelson, however his three-year, nine-defence reign as WBC kingpin masks some fairly non-descript performances at the weight. Juan La Porte, a solid fighter of an undeniably lower rank, who could always be relied upon to lose when he stepped up to the highest class, managed to contain Chavez for long periods and, dare I ssay it, even make him look average for spells. The same can be said for Rocky Lockridge, a man who'd have struggled to snag more than a couple of rounds against the aforementioned 130 lb legends. In retrospect, I always found it surprising that Chavez was considered the betting underdog when he eventually stepped up to challenge Edwin Rosario for Lightweight honours, but I can see the reasoning in that now. Chavez beat La Porte and Lockridge, of course, but I'm not so sure that a top twenty fighter of all time, pound for pound, should be made to work quite as hard as he had to for those victories.

Admittedly, Chavez did shine as a Lightweight. His thrashing of Rosario, for the rest of his career, remained his most dominant display. And while Chavez was known more for his tenacity, work rate and inside brawling than he was for any technical virtuosity or craft within his boxing, he did do some good work towards dispelling the idea that he was just a flat tack bully in this fight. He seldom needed any of them after six rounds of softening Rosario up, but early in the fight there were real signs of elite quality from Chavez; improved head movement, clever use of the elbows to make room when working on the inside etc. But this was, at the end of the dy, still Edwin Rosario. A very, very good fighter, but not a great one in any sense. A similar claim can be made of José Luis Ramirez, against whom Chavez won without really enhancing his reputation to complete his WBA / WBC double at 135 lb.

And so we move on to Light-Welterweight, where Chavez had his greatest fame. Julio reigned for an eternity at 140 lb, but the two best operators he met at the weight, if we consider their respective conditions at the time he faced each opponent, were the Meldrick Taylor of 1990 and the Frankie Randall of 1994. And of the thirty-two rounds he boxed against them, how many do the impartial and sinsible judges amongst us think that Chavez won? Ten? Maybe eleven, at best? The nature of the stoppage against Taylor has been done to death, but suffice to say that Chavez had Lady Luck on his side to some extent that night, and the scoring in both fights with Randall was, quite frankly, a disgrace. 'The Surgeon' battered Chavez from pillar to post in their first encounter, and yet the judges still came perilously close to allowing the Mexican to keep his title; had Richard Steele not deducted a point from Chavez in the championship rounds, the bout would have somehow been declared a draw. I also think little of the verdict handed out in the rematch - is there a single poster amongst us who feels that Chavez was good value for the win there?

And, of course, there was the much-anticipated showdown wth Pernell Whitaker, who tied Chavez in knots, teed off on him and evaded the best shots he had to offer for twelve rounds before the judges (who Bert Sugar, afterwards, referred to as "clowns in clown's clothing") converted the bout in to a fraudulent draw.

I have to say, the more I think about it, the more I begin to appreciate Boon's point that Chavez's legacy may just be built on nothing more than longevity to a greater degree than I first thought.

Consider this - Julio Snr is consistently, or better still invariably, ranked ahead of the likes of Nicolino Locche, Wilfred Benitez and José Napoles on the pound for pound lists of fans and historians alike - and yet, given all of this evidence, how could he realistically be expected to beat any of them without a dose of odd scoring or a timely intervention from a referee? Isn't it an untenable position to be in, to call Julio an all-time great, or the finest fighter to emerge from Mexico, when so much of his sucess (seemingly) rests upon being the right man, in the right place, at the right time?

Or would this be casting an overly-critical eye on such a phenomenally successful career? Chavez did, after all, compile the longest winning run ever seen in world title fights, establish himself as the generally-recognized top dog in three weight classes and beat something like fourteen world title holders in all (albeit, there will always be an unpleasant stench surrounding some of those victories). And even if the likes of Rosario, an incedibly gun-shy Camacho, Ramirez, Roger Mayweather, Tony Lopez and Rafael Limon did play in to Chavez's hands in their approach to fighting him, isn't it still a mark of greatness that Chavez never once allowed himself to fall to complacency against such men? After all, as Vinny Pazienza said about Joe Calzaghe, "Even if he fought his own mother forty-sx times, you'd have thought she might get lucky at least once."

So for argument's sake, let's just say that Chavez is, indeed, considered by the majority of us to belong somewhere around the twenty mark, pound for pound, and at the top of any list of great Mexican fighters from all eras - is that being too kind to him? Or do we think it's entirely justified? I'm undecided, so the floor is yours to convince me either way, if you're interested.

Thanks lads. Fire away if you fancy it.

Right man at the right place at the right time is an alarmingly revisionist sentence about a man who was basically impregnable for a decade at championship level, Chris.

Chavez is first or second among Mexican fighters, for me. Didn't always look pretty and could be made to appear decidedly ordinary by really good boxers, but he gunned down most of them in the end. Camacho is a win that shouldn't be ignored and he did finish Taylor's career, however lucky he was the first time round, when at least we can say that the man who got beaten up actually lost the fight. Add that to the other top wins, and it's clear that we're talking about no ordinary fighter. Whitaker was better than him, so no shame in being outboxed there, and I forget about those losses when he was basically gone. A formidable record.

His longevity puts him miles ahead of folk like Benitez and Locche in the all-time standings and while he might be a fighter that I slightly revise down with the passage of time, I can't imagine not putting him inside my top 30. And saying that confirms to me that he must rank as Mexico's finest. The great Sanchez was denied the opportunity to prove himself even greater by fate, but he can't rank as high as JC Superstar overall.

Good response, captain.

I should stress, I'm not questioning whether or not Chavez was a great in general - because he clearly was, and that much is undeniable. I was, to begin with, very much in the Rodney camp, insofar as my thoughts on Chavez could be summed up in one fairly short sentence - phenomenal career statistics, outstanding longevity, has to be considered a great of the elite rank or something like it.

It's just that, as time passes, I tend to find myself becoming less and less impressed with his oppositon. It's all relative, of course; if we exclude Fitzsimmons and McLarnin for reasons we've covered a million times over, then Julio still has a record which comfortably trumps that of any fighter to emerge from British shores.

Right man, right place, right time may well be stretching matters, I agree, but it was the best I could come up with as I struggled to articulate and emphasise my point! I just feel thatChavez is something of a unique case, as he's a fighter who is regularly ranked higher than those who would, I think, have had the beating of him.

Magnificent fighter, just maybe not as great as history might have us believe, in a nutshell.

Great article Chris and I don't have the time to do it justice, but Chavez, Sanchez and Lopez are the top three Mexicans of all time, in that order, for me and JCC is easily a top 25 fighter by any criteria you wish to apply.

We can find holes in his record but so what, we can do the same with pretty much any fighter in history if we try hard enough. The fact remains, his achievements are huge, his talent was pretty evident to my eyes and he remains the benchmark fighter for any Mexican that followed him.

A genuine great and I hope history doesn't diminish his brilliance.

Cheers Tino, another fine reply.

Could well be that I've cast an all too critical eye over Julio's accomplishments, then! Maybe his consistency in his championship years was so precise and machine-like it's become easy to underestimate?

Whatever the weather, the responses so far have been enough for me to start thinking that maybe my more flattering view of Chavez that I started with was, in fact, the right one. Consider me well and truly told, fellas!

You hope in vain I think Tino. Think Chavez is suffering from what happened to Naz, most of his opponents not being spectacular therefore not being any good at all. A lot of the people he beat arent names but were very good at the time former, current and future world champions and he either annihilated them or ground em down victory after victory. My favourite thing about Chavez is his lack of concern for what the opponent does - he just gets down punch by punch by punch and wins through sheer force of will - not a man you can discount and his achievements put him high in that list - maybe 20-25

What difference does it make if he's ranked higher than fighters who would have had the beating of him? I think that Bob Fitzsimmons would probably have lost to have Riddick Bowe if they'd gone head to head but that doesn't mean that Bowe should be ranked over Fitzsimmons on any all time lists.

Chavez ticks all the boxes of greatness for me. Long career, fought everybody that he could...what more could I ask? A win against Whittaker maybe to cement his place just that little bit more? Not necessary though, Chavez was a great already for me.

I would hate to think of his longevity being a stick to beat him with, if that is how I understand Boon's point? I haven't read it first hand, but it seems a strange notion. One persons version of Chavez's career as seeing him being "fortunate to meet, over and over again, opponents who allowed him to fight to his strengths" is my version of JCC dragging his opponent into his kind of fight and enforcing his will on the fight. As the Captain has pointed out, he has a championship reign when he was utterly dominant and crushingly effective as a fighter.

Yes he struggled with a certain kind of style and I agree that he was hammered by Randall, struggled with Taylor and lost to a borderline top 10'er in Sweet Pea, but these are great fighters in their own right. Lennox Lewis is lauded in many quarters as as great but lost twice to fighters immeasurably worse than Randall, Taylor and Whitaker. Even the greatest heavyweight of all time struggled with Norton. Fighters have opponents and styles that give them trouble, but lets focus on the positive aspects to his career and I don't know how he can be left out of a top 25.

Atila wrote:What difference does it make if he's ranked higher than fighters who would have had the beating of him? I think that Bob Fitzsimmons would probably have lost to have Riddick Bowe if they'd gone head to head but that doesn't mean that Bowe should be ranked over Fitzsimmons on any all time lists.

Not quite the same, Atila - Fitzsimmons was, at best, a natural Super-Middleweight, Bowe a fully-fledged, genuine Heavyweight. The comparisons I made with Chavez were with men who were of a comparable size to him, and therefore is a little more relevant, I think. But hey ho, horses for courses and all that.

I'm getting the impression that I may end up regretting posting this article!

88Chris05 wrote:

Atila wrote:What difference does it make if he's ranked higher than fighters who would have had the beating of him? I think that Bob Fitzsimmons would probably have lost to have Riddick Bowe if they'd gone head to head but that doesn't mean that Bowe should be ranked over Fitzsimmons on any all time lists.

Not quite the same, Atila - Fitzsimmons was, at best, a natural Super-Middleweight, Bowe a fully-fledged, genuine Heavyweight. The comparisons I made with Chavez were with men who were of a comparable size to him, and therefore is a little more relevant, I think. But hey ho, horses for courses and all that.

I'm getting the impression that I may end up regretting posting this article!

I was being a little extreme but they were both heavyweight champs. Maybe I would have been better of using Duran and Laing as an example?

Anyway, it's a good thread.

There should never be any sacred cows, Chris and I hope the fact that opinion seems to be generally against you on this one won't stop you posting more articles like this. I think they're great, as I do the discussions of fighters like Monzon and Greb that are ongoing on Shah's thread.

The idea is that we all assimilate a bit more knowledge that will help us see things clearly in a completely different area somewhere down the track.

captain carrantuohil wrote:There should never be any sacred cows, Chris and I hope the fact that opinion seems to be generally against you on this one won't stop you posting more articles like this. I think they're great, as I do the discussions of fighters like Monzon and Greb that are ongoing on Shah's thread.

The idea is that we all assimilate a bit more knowledge that will help us see things clearly in a completely different area somewhere down the track.

*Quietly extinguishes flaming torch and returns pitchfork to the shed*

I thinks its a little citical of Chavez. His record was padded with some really average fighters due to the frequency with which he fought but over 3 weights he still must have racked up about 20 odd wins over ranked fighters including some very good wins in a very consistent manner. Maybe the fact his record is so stetched out makes it appear a little diluted but if you cut away the padding it still makes good reading. Worth a top twenty place with me.

Holds the record for record of championship fights and championship wins, both over the 30 mark I believe, he struggled with Taylor and Whitaker but pulled it out the bag in one instance (deserved victory in my eyes). It's a bit revisionist to say that his opponents played into hands when currently we have Ward touted as the p4p number one when they've all done exactly the same thing.

His list of wins before actually losing is littered with greatness but it's littered with the best of his era something we shouldn't overlook. Camacho, Rosario, Ramirez, Taylor, Haugen, Jakubowski, Mayweather, Limon, Laporte, Lockridge, Castillo and Martinez weren't short of talent in the slightest. Add in the sheer volume of ranked fighters he was beating as well and it's a mighty impressive record, the numerical statistic of 107-6-2 is I agree very misleading but it's no different than the pre 70's fighters like Moore, Charles or Robinson.

A great great fighter for me......

Think Rosario was his greatest win...but arguably the greatest ever 130 pounder....

Looked unbeatable at that weight.....Loved to have seen him fight a Sanchez or Camacho there.....

Camacho was a nightmare for anybody at 130.....might even have beat julio...

longevity..........quality on his record........a record slightly sullied by the way randall and Oscar seemed to handle him...

Especially Oscar who had his number then and probably anytime..

like he had Whittaker's.............

First of all thanks Chris for this thread, dont mind one bit you mention my admiration for Chavez, a great write up and read

We have so many great fighters its hard to place Chavez as others but he makes my top 20 and I'll try not to use my personal appreciation for a fighter as it can taint my ability to view him onjectively.

However entering the ring against Pernell Whitaker, with his prime IMO behind him, Chavez sported a record of 87 wins with no losses and no draws, with nearly 80 of those wins coming inside the distance. As Truss alluded he held wins over Rocky Lockridge, Juan Laporte, Edwin Rosario, Jose Luis Ramirez, Hector Camacho, and Meldrick Taylor - just to name a few. Truth is, he beat everybody, and it was a very good field.

He was almost indestructible in his prime, never knocked off his feet. He was a vicious body puncher, constantly coming, throwing short chopping shots from both directions. He excelled at trench warfare. And even extraordinary boxers like Camacho and Taylor suffered brutal beatings at his hands.

Even at the age of 31 with this record of wear-and-tear warfare, Chavez held the welterweight champion to a draw. I didn't agree with the verdict (I thought Whitaker won)

I always thought Chavez's powers declined rapidly after this fight

Chavez was a throwback to an age when a fighter fought all the time and fought everybody. I genuinely dont think Chavez lost a fight in his prime.

His skills were as good as any as he sapped the will of his opposition, beating them up rather than just knocking them out. He was the quintessential warrior, exactly the type of fighter the sport needs and that we the fans want. He dominated and was active for a helluva lot of years so I'm not sure what criteria you would need to meet to be based as a top 20 tier.

As a sidenote, on the basis of resume who would get the nod between Whitaker and Chavez, I originally thought Whitaker but the more you look at it Chavez has a shout, possibily Whitaker on a head to head basis, but Chavez on resume ?

Cheers, All the best

Rodders

Thanks Rodders, glad you enjoyed the article. Was hoping you'd drop by as it was your comments along with Boon's which made me pose the question to everyone else.

As I said earlier, Chavez has usually made my top twenty without too much trouble, and with the arguments put forward here it seems that I can rest easy, knowing that such a placing was justified. I'm sure whatever niggling doubts I had about Chavez, or more precisely whether or not he deserves the accolades often thrown at him, will disappear from my mind soon enough.

With regards to the battle of the resumés between Chavez and Whitaker, well I'd have to still give a decisive edge to Pea, but that's just me. Opposition beaten between the pair is largely equal / similar, but I'd say there's a very slight edge for Whitaker. Longevity goes with Chavez by a similarly small margin, but I think Whitaker, against his very best opponents and toughest tests, had a dominance and virtuosity in his boxing which Julio didn't quite have. Chavez was pushed at times, whereas before parting company with Benton and swapping his boxing shorts for his St. George dragon chasing attire, Whitaker was pushed to his limits once and once only, by the excellent McGirt at Welterweight - and this was after years of hardly losing a single round at 135 and 140 lb.

Further down the line, I just feel that there are a number of other arguments in Whitaker's favour, even if they are small; world titles in four weights to Chavez's three and, of course, the fact that Julio was damn lucky to escape with a share of the spoils when they did meet.

Chavez certainly a great whichever way you look at it, but Whitaker that bit greater, for me.

Cheers Chris mate, certainly won't argue with that I obviously believe Whitaker definately deserved the nod in that 1993 meeting, but Chavez has a record matched by not many. The longest winning streak in history is certainly something to be admired. While both men fought their fair share of good opponents, I think Julio beat a few additional rated opponents who were a bit better. Handing an undefeated Camacho his first loss was a huge win. Beating a prime Roger Mayweather twice was also very good. Coming back to take the win over Taylor was a collosal victory, albeit controversial. Whitaker was horribly robbed against Jose Luis Ramirez, but Chavez made sure that losing a decision wasn't going to happen against Ramirez. Both men beat Haugen, but Chavez destroyed him.

Give Julio the narrowest nod, but its horses for courses in reality mate.

Cheers Rodders

I think it's a similar case when it comes to Whitaker-Duran comparisons at Lightweight, Rodders. Duran often held up as the most dominant Lightweight of the lot, but, although it took me a while to come round to such a way of thinking, an argument can be made that Whitaker was just as dominant as Roberto at 135 lb, perhaps even more so - he was just dominant in a very different way.

Haugen was a very fine fighter, and they both outclassed him; Chavez's style means that his job on Haugen would always stand out that little bit more, though.

Still, I wouldn't argue too much if someone said they felt that Julio beat the better men, because although I give Pernell the edge in that respect, there's not much in it either way. Outside of their contentious draw, they share a few mutual opponents; Uncle Roger, Haugen, Ramirez etc. Both of them navigated those names without too much bother, if we leave the absolutely digusting Whitaker-Ramirez I 'decision' aside.

After that, it's similarly close. Whitaker's best wins (Nelson, McGirt, Vasquez, Pineda, Nazario etc) match up pretty well with Chavez's (Taylor, Camacho, La Porte, Rosario, Lopez etc). I guess I'd just plump for Whitaker firstly because he tended to carry an air of invulnerability against such foes which Chavez couldn't quite match, and also because the fellas he beat often still had defining moments ahead of them, particularly the likes of Nelson and Haugen. On the other hand, Julio's victims didn't seem to have that much left once he'd squashed them - mind you, you could easily argue that it was the traumatic experience of having Chavez teeing off on you all night which contributed to that!

He's a bit of a poor man Duran to me, which may be a bit unfair, but I can't help it. Similar to Duran in a lot of ways, but just not quite as good in most areas. Great longevity and record, ferocious on stop pressure, under rated defence, struggled with slicksters etc etc. But just cause he doesn't excite in quite the way Duran did should not detract from the fact his record reads like a who's who of his generation, If Durans top ten, then Julio deserves top twentyish status

Superb article Chris, I can see where you're coming from in respect of our view of Chavez. It looks to the world like he had a stellar career and was a punching machine that nobody really found a way of stopping, but your analysis i feel although VERY stringent, is largely correct, he has had some contentious decisions - its undeniable, but for the most part of his career he did just blow his opponents away, and he did show that he was more than capable of stepping up, so I feel his inclusion in a top 25 is easily justified in my view.

I suppose if you look at his career, you have to imagine anyone else doing as well with the same opponents. He does have some opponents who had no business testing him the way they did, but he probably went into Autopilot, and although very one dimensional, he was a master at what he did, so unless they were willing to fight his fight, it was always difficult for him to adapt.

All in all, a great article Chris, its made me rethink a lot of what I think about Chavez - I wouldn't have argued previously against anyone with him inside a top 20, but I can see reasons now for him to be only slightly outside.

Thanks to both HH and Jab Machine for the contributions there - some good points made. Nice to see you posting again JM, mate. Things have been quiet on here over the past few weeks, what with the Olympics, Paralympics and Murray's US Open win (all of which were absolutely fantastic, to be fair), but the boxing section is coming back to life quite nicely now, I think.

I think it can, perhaps, be easy to underestimate or not fully appreciate Chavez due to his sheer consistency; if you took a group of fighters comparable in size to him (Benny, Whitaker, Locche, Pryor, Gans, Arguello, Ross etc) and examined their respective speed, punching power, defensive artistry, ring generalship, legs and the like, Julio wouldn't be top in any of them, but wouldn't be bottom, either.

He didn't do anything spectacularly, but he did everything well.

It's funny that I should end up writing this article, as Chavez has always been a fighter I've idolized, particularly as a young lad getting in to the sport. I vividly remember reading books and articles, when I'd have been still pre-teens, which kept referring to Julio as, without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest fighter of his generation. As young'uns often do, I suppose I more or less took it as gospel. Perhaps that's why, as I learned more of Whitaker, Jones and the like, I began to dig in to Chavez's record more and more - maybe to the point of error?

I'm probably not posting for too long, I see a lack of quality now, couldn't resist posting to support yours Chris, this is what the board needs - articles like this, rather than arguments over who juices and who's hyped and all that, it makes it more juvenile.

I know your favorite is Pernell so I'm not TOO surprised you'd have (in the back of your mind) a reason to possibly see the outcome of their fight as (yes a robbery but you would probably have felt that sting a little more than most) something to really dig into Chavez's career over.

I think he was a master at standing there and making you want to punch him, every time I see him getting in the ring, he'd pull a face that made even me, sitting at home on Youtube want to catch a flight and knock his teeth into his spine.

I suppose his loss to Randall shows really what would have been largely his limitations, Randall knew he could win points early on, and did and although he sustained his lead, Chavez was like a bull in the last few rounds.

The rematch was just as close - like I said, he found his bogey men, because Pernell would have torn Randall apart in my eyes, quite comfortably.

He's great, world class - but at what he did. I think he was largely fed a lot of "easy" opponents during his title reign, perhaps not at the start, but once they realised what they had, the promoters would have had a reason to feed him average opponents, he did earn his title I feel and fought well in the initial 5 fights, but then afterwards became a little...complacent?

88Chris05 wrote:

Haugen was a very fine fighter, and they both outclassed him; Chavez's style means that his job on Haugen would always stand out that little bit more, though.

I remember that fight well. Haugen was winding Chavez up in the build up, questioning his record, the financial ability of a bunch of Mexicans to fill the Azteca stadium and deriding JCC's opponents with the immortal 'Tijuana taxi driver' jibes.

Sure enough, 130,000 Mexicans turn up to watch Chavez put on a brutal masterclass in teaching someone to keep their cake hole shut. I think he could have finished him inside 3 minutes if he wanted to but punished him before it was stopped in five. He was vicious and dominant that night, and Haugen was no mug either. He had only lost to some real class before that night but Chavez crunched him completely.

JabMachineMK2 wrote:I'm probably not posting for too long, I see a lack of quality now, couldn't resist posting to support yours Chris, this is what the board needs - articles like this, rather than arguments over who juices and who's hyped and all that, it makes it more juvenile.

I know your favorite is Pernell so I'm not TOO surprised you'd have (in the back of your mind) a reason to possibly see the outcome of their fight as (yes a robbery but you would probably have felt that sting a little more than most) something to really dig into Chavez's career over.

I think he was a master at standing there and making you want to punch him, every time I see him getting in the ring, he'd pull a face that made even me, sitting at home on Youtube want to catch a flight and knock his teeth into his spine.

I suppose his loss to Randall shows really what would have been largely his limitations, Randall knew he could win points early on, and did and although he sustained his lead, Chavez was like a bull in the last few rounds.

The rematch was just as close - like I said, he found his bogey men, because Pernell would have torn Randall apart in my eyes, quite comfortably.

He's great, world class - but at what he did. I think he was largely fed a lot of "easy" opponents during his title reign, perhaps not at the start, but once they realised what they had, the promoters would have had a reason to feed him average opponents, he did earn his title I feel and fought well in the initial 5 fights, but then afterwards became a little...complacent?

Couldn't agree more!!

We need another few articles from members who have been sparring with Kell Brook though to bring that quality back

haha, only kiddin JM!!!

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:Couldn't agree more!!

We need another few articles from members who have been sparring with Kell Brook though to bring that quality back

haha, only kiddin JM!!!

Someone else brings up your Walter Mitty article...he gets the thumbs up!!

I do it and I get reported ..

nice.....

Chavez above Whittaker for me...about the same spot as Roberto around the fifteen-twenty mark...

Whittaker never really beat anybody.....

Best fighters he fought Chavez....Trinidad....Oscar....

Why is he any different than Calazaghe???? who reigned just as long....

0-2-1 against the above..

You really don't like Whitaker do you Truss?

I don't think he beat anybody that great!!! a la Calzaghe....

Gets too much credit for beating chaff like Haugen, Ramirez (1-1 ) and Nazario, Paez types!!!

Besides he always stunk so yes...I'm not keen..

Re-iterate he lost to his best opponents a la Louis....

Azumah Nelson wasn't that great then?

The same can be said of Chavez who was 0-3-1 against De La Hoya, Whitaker and Tzuyu, you have odd views on things it's as if you haven't bothered to watch any of his fights and base it simply on statistics.

Azumah Nelson was a feather/superfeath........

He spent the evening running for from him too....

I suppose you'll be giving Norris huge credit for Taylor ????

Give over ghosty boy..

Bit of a difference isn't there when Nelson went on to have a lot of success after the Whitaker fight, size didn't play a part it was all about skill that night. So remind me which greats did Chavez beat?

No difference at all...Nelson couldn't bang at 135 and was as small as Taylor at 150..

Taylor went on to win the wba welterweight title.....

Sure Nelson had more success....Norris caned Taylor!!!......Whittaker stunk the place out as usual...

Alright Nunn v Starling then...

I remeber when he fought Taylor in their first fight. He was 56 wins no losses 56 ko's yet he is not in the top 5 greatest fighters of all time.

He spawned the anti-christ of boxing.

For that, everything he achieved is thrown out of the window.

Greatest Mexican fighter of all time or not far off anyway, and an excellent tribute from Rodney. I didn't realize he was past his best for the Whittaker fight. Still got a draw against one of the best defensive wizards of all time. Don't know if that was a fair result as never seen the fight from start to finish. He fits in to the top twenty very comfortably for me. Wouldn't have minded seeing him fight Duran at lightweight and Nelson. Duran was a middleweight of course by the time Chavez was in his prime.