BoxRec

Ok, when asked by a mate last night who the best Mexican fighter ever was, I demurred from trying to answer, saying the best i could do would be a tentative top 5 from roughly within my own lifetime. said tentative top 5 being (in no particular order)

Sanchez
Chavez
Morales
Barrera
and the last name was between Humberto Gonzalez and Finito Lopez.

am I far out there, in your esteemed estimations?

then if i was trying to expand it to a top 10, hmmmm, I *think* JMM gets in there, but beyond that, meh, I'd had a few beers and i don't feel so clever now either....

what are your calls, here, anyway?

Nothing wrong with your list. I had a fairly in depth exchange of ideas with someone very recently on the greatest Mexicans ever. So with a couple of iffy ones on your time frame and an admitted man love for Erik. In whatever order you prefer, this is most of the names, though I'm sure we forgot someone.

1. Erik Morales
2. Salvador Sanchez
3. Julio Cesar Chavez
4. Marco Antonio Barrera
5. Carlos Zarate
6. Juan manuel Marquez
7. Rafael marquez
8. Jose Luis Castillo
9. Lupe Pintor
10. Israel Vazquez
11. Ricardo Lopez
12. Humberto Gonzalez
13. Gilberto Roman
14. Carlos Palomino
15. Pipino Cuevas
16. Fernando Montiel
17. Jorge Arce
18. Jose Luis Ramirez
19. Bazooka Limon
20. Alfonso Zamora

i was hoping someone would expand the list to 10 or 20, which i would have no chance with.

where it gets interesting, for me, is trying to split Chavez/Sanchez (whom i just have as top two) and Morales and MAB.

Morales - Mab, MAB has the better results in their head-to-head, Morales win over Pacquiao at least makes up for that and possibly surpasses it.

Chavez i have as a better resume than Sanchez, but does that outweigh Sanchez manifestly higher talent/skill levels?

The question with Chavez is does beating a ton of very good fighters for a long stretch of time outweigh beating a few great ones? Personally, I value beating other great fighters more. But I can see the other side of the coin.

I think Chavez,Sanchez,Morales & Marco are the pretty clear top 4. We agree on that and I have them very closely grouped. If you expanded your time frame. Olivares, Saldivar & Arizmendi are way up there too.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:The question with Chavez is does beating a ton of very good fighters for a long stretch of time outweigh beating a few great ones? Personally, I value beating other great fighters more. But I can see the other side of the coin.

I think Chavez,Sanchez,Morales & Marco are the pretty clear top 4. We agree on that and I have them very closely grouped. If you expanded your time frame. Olivares, Saldivar & Arizmendi are way up there too.

the latter are exactly the kind of names i wouldn't really be able to comment on, hence my timeline haha.

most of the other names you have filling out the top 20 are ones i'd have had in somewhere, then there's the likes of Roman who i'd have totally overlooked. I can flip-flop between Chavez's and Sanchez's career according to my mood and often which of them I've seen more recently. though Sanchez's extra virtuousity wins the man-crush vote, if nothing else. same with MAB and Morales, they're close enough that splitting them requires some kind of arbitrary tiebreaker, at the moment mine's the pacquiao win for Morales, I think.

Counter-puncher wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:The question with Chavez is does beating a ton of very good fighters for a long stretch of time outweigh beating a few great ones? Personally, I value beating other great fighters more. But I can see the other side of the coin.

I think Chavez,Sanchez,Morales & Marco are the pretty clear top 4. We agree on that and I have them very closely grouped. If you expanded your time frame. Olivares, Saldivar & Arizmendi are way up there too.

the latter are exactly the kind of names i wouldn't really be able to comment on, hence my timeline haha.

most of the other names you have filling out the top 20 are ones i'd have had in somewhere, then there's the likes of Roman who i'd have totally overlooked. I can flip-flop between Chavez's and Sanchez's career according to my mood and often which of them I've seen more recently. though Sanchez's extra virtuousity wins the man-crush vote, if nothing else. same with MAB and Morales, they're close enough that splitting them requires some kind of arbitrary tiebreaker, at the moment mine's the pacquiao win for Morales, I think.

Raul Perez, Larios and Zaragoza are a couple of honorable mentions I thought of while I wasted time talking to an over the top Ali fanatic.

Zaragoza i should have thought of.

Thing about making one of these lists is a lot of these guys wound up competing in the same eras with extremely competitive results against one another and one another's common opponents.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Nothing wrong with your list. I had a fairly in depth exchange of ideas with someone very recently on the greatest Mexicans ever. So with a couple of iffy ones on your time frame and an admitted man love for Erik. In whatever order you prefer, this is most of the names, though I'm sure we forgot someone.

1. Erik Morales
2. Salvador Sanchez
3. Julio Cesar Chavez
4. Marco Antonio Barrera
5. Carlos Zarate
6. Juan manuel Marquez
7. Rafael marquez
8. Jose Luis Castillo
9. Lupe Pintor
10. Israel Vazquez
11. Ricardo Lopez
12. Humberto Gonzalez
13. Gilberto Roman
14. Carlos Palomino
15. Pipino Cuevas
16. Fernando Montiel
17. Jorge Arce
18. Jose Luis Ramirez
19. Bazooka Limon
20. Alfonso Zamora

Saad, come on man

Goodnight, Irene wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Nothing wrong with your list. I had a fairly in depth exchange of ideas with someone very recently on the greatest Mexicans ever. So with a couple of iffy ones on your time frame and an admitted man love for Erik. In whatever order you prefer, this is most of the names, though I'm sure we forgot someone.

1. Erik Morales
2. Salvador Sanchez
3. Julio Cesar Chavez
4. Marco Antonio Barrera
5. Carlos Zarate
6. Juan manuel Marquez
7. Rafael marquez
8. Jose Luis Castillo
9. Lupe Pintor
10. Israel Vazquez
11. Ricardo Lopez
12. Humberto Gonzalez
13. Gilberto Roman
14. Carlos Palomino
15. Pipino Cuevas
16. Fernando Montiel
17. Jorge Arce
18. Jose Luis Ramirez
19. Bazooka Limon
20. Alfonso Zamora

Saad, come on man

I at your

Man-love or not, its completely indefensible. He doesnt have the resume, the skills or the talent for the top spot.

Jesus, I think almost everyone would agree its a perfectly reasonable position (whether they agreed with it or not) to say Morales wasnt even the best Mexican of his generation! Forget all-time.

However we could discuss you ranking Castillo & Vazquez over Lopez if you prefer

Goodnight, Irene wrote:Man-love or not, its completely indefensible. He doesnt have the resume, the skills or the talent for the top spot.

Jesus, I think almost everyone would agree its a perfectly reasonable position (whether they agreed with it or not) to say Morales wasnt even the best Mexican of his generation! Forget all-time.

He most certainly has the resume, skills and talent to be in the discussion. Though I rate Olivares at #1 all time. And I have no problem with MAB, Sanchez and Chavez ahead of him. To act like it's a foregone conclusion that any of them should be is silly.

Morales would be reasonably placed anywhere in the top 8. Lower than that will garner you a double

Goodnight, Irene wrote:However we could discuss you ranking Castillo & Vazquez over Lopez if you prefer

That is too easy. Nothing to discuss there.

I have to clarify something here. I didn't realise this was 1976-onward. I still wouldn't put Morales #1, but yes, he's in that discussion. I took this as all-time, across all eras. A retraction is in order.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:

Goodnight, Irene wrote:However we could discuss you ranking Castillo & Vazquez over Lopez if you prefer

That is too easy. Nothing to discuss there.

Not making any retractions on my, ' ' for this one, though. Vazquez especially. Just criminal.

So you thought I had excluded Olivares, Saldivar and Arizmendi from my all time top 20? No wonder you were laughing.

Those Mexican greats are very closely grouped and difficult to rank. So manlove is the deciding factor for me.

Goodnight, Irene wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:

Goodnight, Irene wrote:However we could discuss you ranking Castillo & Vazquez over Lopez if you prefer

That is too easy. Nothing to discuss there.

Not making any retractions on my, ' ' for this one, though. Vazquez especially. Just criminal.

I guess resume doesn't matter when it comes to your manlove? Marquez x2, larios x2 & Gonzalez would be 5 of the top 6 wins between Lopez and Izzy. That's pretty substantial.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:So you thought I had excluded Olivares, Saldivar and Arizmendi from my all time top 20? No wonder you were laughing.

Those Mexican greats are very closely grouped and difficult to rank. So manlove is the deciding factor for me.

Fair enough there.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:

Goodnight, Irene wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:
That is too easy. Nothing to discuss there.

Not making any retractions on my, ' ' for this one, though. Vazquez especially. Just criminal.

I guess resume doesn't matter when it comes to your manlove? Marquez x2, larios x2 & Gonzalez would be 5 of the top 6 wins between Lopez and Izzy. That's pretty substantial.

So is the fact Lopez could do more in his sleep than a crude, face-first brawler like Vazquez. The disparity in ability is just impossible to even quantify in words.

Goodnight, Irene wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:

Goodnight, Irene wrote: Not making any retractions on my, ' ' for this one, though. Vazquez especially. Just criminal.

I guess resume doesn't matter when it comes to your manlove? Marquez x2, larios x2 & Gonzalez would be 5 of the top 6 wins between Lopez and Izzy. That's pretty substantial.

So is the fact Lopez could do more in his sleep than a crude, face-first brawler like Vazquez. The disparity in ability is just impossible to even quantify in words.

I rate higher on accomplishments than what may look more aesthetically pleasing. Marquez is much more skilled than Vazquez too. Heart, will and power can overcome quite a bit in between the ropes.

Lopez never faced anyone that good. I concede his talent was immense, but his resume was not. I've just seen too many all world talents lose against tough opposition to give him the benefit of the doubt in an all time discussion. I actually gave him some love putting him ahead of Humberto.

I must admit, for admirers of Lopez such as myself, his resume is a frustrating sticking point. I believe in him utterly, but that is always gonna come up...

Calling Vazquez a crude face first brawler isn't giving him nearly enough credit. The man was like a mini Joe Frazier, that left hook and uppercut could knock a wall down

Diamond WEAPON wrote:Calling Vazquez a crude face first brawler isn't giving him nearly enough credit. The man was like a mini Joe Frazier, that left hook and uppercut could knock a wall down

& that's brutally, brutally over-stating him.

No wonder Saad was so unwilling to admit Chucho Castillo's superiority over Morales.