Paez is a fighter I very rarely see mentioned on boxing boards, let along discussed in depth.
Personally, I was pretty impressed with Paez when he first came up. He was a very skilled (if awkward) technician, with quick hands and good counterpunching ability, very strong for the weight, and a pretty solid puncher with both hands. In some ways, he was almost like a cross between James Toney and Jake LaMotta; or perhaps Archie Moore without the one-shot KO power would be a better comparison. As a featherweight, he won his title by upsetting a pretty good-looking titlist in Calvin Grove. After being outboxed for much of the fight, he pulled it out by dropping Grove three times in the 15th and final round - one of the last times a fight ever went 15 rounds I believe. In a rematch, he pounded Grove into an 11th round stoppage. After that, he also had impressive (and exciting) performances against big punching Louie Espinoza and ex-champ Steve Cruz. The Espinoza fight was officially declared a draw, but Paez was a clear winner IMO (the fight was on Espinoza's home turf in Arizona). The fight with Cruz was billed as a grudge match with a lot of trash talking and bad blood between the two fighters. Paez rose from an early knockdown (the first time I ever saw him go down) and muscled his way to a clear decision win.
Personally, I had thought Paez might be on his way to being a good and long reigning FW champion. At one point, his two co-champions were Antonio Esparragoza and Jeff Fenech, and a unification fight between any of those three would've been most welcome. However, Paez had a reputation for ballooning in weight between fights the way Hatton and Toney did, and he weighed up around 135 for his non-title fights. Ch!nks began to show in his armor when he defended against Troy Dorsey, who was thought of as just a clubfighter at that time, and Dorsey bullied and hustled Paez around the ring all night long. I thought Dorsey was a clear winner, but Paez somehow came away with a split decision that I thought was one of the worst I'd ever seen - and a lot of other people shared the same sentiment. Paez then had a unification fight of sorts against Espinoza (who had the WBO title after their first fight). This time it was a genuinely close fight and Paez rallied to pull out a split decision. He then gave Dorsey a deserved rematch. This fight followed a similar pattern as the first one, with Dorsey relentlessly swarming and Paez looking to counter with the cleaner, harder punches. This time, Paez managed something of a rally toward the end to pull out a draw.
Before the Dorsey rematch, Paez had declared that he would go up to 130 and challenge Tony Lopez for his title, and then up to 135 and fight Whitaker for his. Despite failing to beat Dorsey, Paez actually followed through on his word. He moved up and fought Lopez in a lighter weight megafight. The jump in weight figured to do Paez some good, but it turned out he'd met his match in Lopez. Lopez ignored all of Paez's trickery and turned in one of the best performances of his career, outboxing, outmuscling, and outhustling Paez to a clear decision win.
Paez then went up to 135, and curiously, it seemed as though that weight actually suited him better than 130. He looked fitter and stronger after the move than he had in some time, which suggested to me that perhaps he was always a natural LW sucking down to 126. He took on unbeaten contender Tracy Spann in what was considered an eliminator for a shot at Whitaker's title, and he battled his way to a close and exciting split decision win. Even more noteworthy was that Spann had a similar style as Whitaker, which further fueled interest in their title match. When that fight came, Paez performed very credibly, taking the fight to Whitaker from start to finish and working him over as best he could on the inside. Surprisingly, Whitaker chose to stand toe-to-toe for much of the fight and fight Paez on his terms - and even more surprisingly, got the better of it. The fight was exciting and fairly evenly contested through the first 6 rounds or so, but Whitaker's cleaner punching and all-around class took over in the middle of the fight and he went on to win a fair decision.
Paez's last great effort came a year or so later against rising contender Rafael Ruelas. In a brutal all-out war, Paez was floored twice in the first round but battled back to level things out by the middle of the fight. Once again though, he could not maintain the necessary pace, and Ruelas came back down the stretch to batter Paez into a 10th round stoppage. Paez eventually got another title shot against Freddie Pendleton, but lost on points. After that, he fought a fast-rising former Olympian named Oscar DeLaHoya and was shockingly blasted out in two rounds - the first time he ever was KO'd in such a manner. After that came a familiar story, as Paez was used as fodder for up-and-comers like Angel Manfredy and Jose Luis Castillo and took some sad beatings from them. Even more sad is that Paez was still fighting in clubshows up until just a few years ago.
On a side note, it always used to irk me that HBO would blatantly lie and promote Prince Hamed by claiming he was the first fighter to bring color and high TV ratings to the FW division in recent decades. It was like they just pretended Paez never existed. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time HBO acted like fighters who weren't under contract to them never existed.
What are your thoughts on Paez?