BoxRec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjmYSY2i ... F6150E6C4C

died tragically early.... i cant think of a more greater career cut short ??

people raved about Tony Ayala but he was untested.

Wesley Mouzon had a ridiculous amount of promise.

Ketchel was only 24 when he died.

I'd say Pancho Villa also fits the bill.

how'd Villa die??

I think it was an infection in his mouth.

As a featherwight you have to wonder for how long Sanchez could have kept on beating the very best. He seemed at his peak at 23 and with 40+ fights under his belt already.....maybe there was only one way to go?

Les Darcy at 21

bollox wrote:As a featherwight you have to wonder for how long Sanchez could have kept on beating the very best. He seemed at his peak at 23 and with 40+ fights under his belt already.....maybe there was only one way to go?

Are you speaking of going up in weight, or declining as a fighter?

Goodnight, Irene wrote:

bollox wrote:As a featherwight you have to wonder for how long Sanchez could have kept on beating the very best. He seemed at his peak at 23 and with 40+ fights under his belt already.....maybe there was only one way to go?

Are you speaking of going up in weight, or declining as a fighter?

Either, really. He'd had almost a full career by a young age and in those days feathers didn't fight til they were 35. I also can't see him him being as successful at higher weights

Didnt Sanchez have plans to quit the sport to become a doctor, and by the thme he was 25?

Thats what Sal said, to be a doctor but all boxers say odd things.

Both Ketchell and Sanchez had already reached their peak when they died. Les Darcy was a more interesting prospect than either, in my opinion.

I think with his skills Sanchez had a lot more to offer... he could box and he could fight and he had the frame on him which I belive could have taken him up to Lightweight while still retaining his speed. Infact when he died there was talk of him stepping up to 135 pounds to fight alexis Arguello he had a lot of trouble making 126 and the fact that he was able to defeat Azhuma Nelson while being weight drained speaks volumes about what a great fighter he was....

fatcity69 wrote:I think with his skills Sanchez had a lot more to offer... he could box and he could fight and he had the frame on him which I belive could have taken him up to Lightweight while still retaining his speed. Infact when he died there was talk of him stepping up to 135 pounds to fight alexis Arguello he had a lot of trouble making 126 and the fact that he was able to defeat Azhuma Nelson while being weight drained speaks volumes about what a great fighter he was....

great gets used way to much in boxing but in this case your spot on cos sanchez was a great fighter and who knows what he could of gone on to do. look what azumah did, and there was some great fights he could of had, when you look at some of the champions at super feather and lightweight between 82 and 86 i would think he could of beat most of them and chavez and arguello would have been crackers i think.

addi wrote:

fatcity69 wrote:I think with his skills Sanchez had a lot more to offer... he could box and he could fight and he had the frame on him which I belive could have taken him up to Lightweight while still retaining his speed. Infact when he died there was talk of him stepping up to 135 pounds to fight alexis Arguello he had a lot of trouble making 126 and the fact that he was able to defeat Azhuma Nelson while being weight drained speaks volumes about what a great fighter he was....

great gets used way to much in boxing but in this case your spot on cos sanchez was a great fighter and who knows what he could of gone on to do. look what azumah did, and there was some great fights he could of had, when you look at some of the champions at super feather and lightweight between 82 and 86 i would think he could of beat most of them and chavez and arguello would have been crackers i think.

Yes, one of the things which always impressed me about him is that he always seemed to have a little in reserve, like you could sense he had more in there to give and the better the opponent then the better he would fight. He was a master at pacing himself and one of the reasons for this was that he was so tight at the weight. So I think he would have been even better at 130 and 135. I have an article in an old boxing mag from about 2 months before he was killed where he said he would be quite happy to go straight up to 135 to fight Arguello. That would have been an awesome matchup, and much as I'm a great fan of the wonderful Arguello I think Sanchezs speed and busyness would have given him problems. Im sure Sanchez had a good 4 or 5 more years at the top left in him probably more with his all round style so although he had acheived a lot already in his career I still think he was only just begining in many ways.

bollox wrote:As a featherwight you have to wonder for how long Sanchez could have kept on beating the very best. He seemed at his peak at 23 and with 40+ fights under his belt already.....maybe there was only one way to go?

He'd have moved up & Won titles at the higher weight. I'm convinced, if the money was right, he'd have moved straight up to LW & fought Arguello.

Now I know people would dismiss his chances against Arguello, but I think he'd have a better chance than people probably thought at the time.

One of my all-time favourite fighters. So much ahead of him. His funeral was/is a sight to behold!

Luther McCarty probably deserves a mention.

I think the biggest fight that we missed when Sanchez passed away was a unification fight with Pedroza. It was far from a given that he would have beaten Pedroza.

Rocky Balboa wrote:

bollox wrote:As a featherwight you have to wonder for how long Sanchez could have kept on beating the very best. He seemed at his peak at 23 and with 40+ fights under his belt already.....maybe there was only one way to go?

He'd have moved up & Won titles at the higher weight. I'm convinced, if the money was right, he'd have moved straight up to LW & fought Arguello.

Now I know people would dismiss his chances against Arguello, but I think he'd have a better chance than people probably thought at the time.

One of my all-time favourite fighters. So much ahead of him. His funeral was/is a sight to behold!

I have no doubt he would have moved up to fight Arguello although how the fight would have gone is obviouly up for debate. It'd be interesting to reverse Arguello and Sanchez' situations with Sanchez having had a full career and Arguello's having been tragically cut short. This thread may have been "Arguello". We'd be here discussing how he'd go against his contemporaries and one of them would have been Sanchez. With the hypothetical short career of Arguello his legend would now be greater than his actual legend is, and there'd probably be a greater weight towards an Arguello win over Sanchez

p.s. a fight between them at 130 would have been better than at 135

The thing is that other than Pac and Hopkins (who has really had a Freak of a career) Sanchez’s record at such a young age was already better than anyone else who is currently fighting (I don’t count Holyfield even though strictly speaking he is still active).

Great fighter indeed...One of the very best that I have ever seen on tv. He was cool under pressure and nothing rattles him...Great concentration and stamina. A complete fighter. He is to me one of the 5 top greatest featherweights of all-time, no doubt.

He missed an unification title bout with the great Eusebio Pedroza. It was one of those fights we had to see, but we did not. My gut feeling was if they would have fought back in '82 or '83, Pedroza would have won by UD...I put my money on Pedroza on that one.

elmersalsa wrote:He missed an unification title bout with the great Eusebio Pedroza. It was one of those fights we had to see, but we did not. My gut feeling was if they would have fought back in '82 or '83, Pedroza would have won by UD...I put my money on Pedroza on that one.

Yes, I think Pedroza would have been a very difficult matchup for him.

was pedroza badly gone when mguigan beat him was he a force still??? i know his next fight was up 2-3 divisions vbut nothing never really came after that.

hurlock wrote:was pedroza badly gone when mguigan beat him was he a force still??? i know his next fight was up 2-3 divisions vbut nothing never really came after that.

Pedroza was through after the Barry McGuigan fight. He was 32 years old. He jumped up in weight, but he was not the same guy. He was shot.

http://ts2.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail ... b676c8989b

Salvador Sanchez was a phenomenon