It's a fair bit more impressive than the credit he gets for it imo. Bantamweight through lightweight was very strong at that time in the Americas with a lot of very good fighters not even getting a sniff, and Laguna was the number one contender at both bantam and feather I think. There are a lot of nice wins on his earlier record spanning 118 to 135 before he upset Ortiz: Eloy Sanchez, Hector Hicks, Nelson Estrada, Baby Salazar, Manhattan Kid Ortiz, Enrique Hitchman, Tony Herrera, Antonio Herrera, Juan Ramirez, Auburn Copeland, Fili Nava, Eduardo Guerrero, Rafiu King, Percy Hayles, Vicente Derado, Angel Robinson Garcia, Sebastiao Nascimento, Don Johnson and a narrow ambush loss to Saldivar in Mexico. All coming to a head with the great win over Ortiz followed with a win against Soriano and draw against Locche in Argentina before Ortiz exacted revenge. His numerous latter wins and close battles with top contenders and other great fighters are well documented, so no need to go into that. For a ten year career with 75 fights, there's very little padding on his record whatsoever.
My second favorite Panamanian lightweight. Excellent boxer, just inconsistent. Great legs, solid jab. Pencil mustache was better than Durans every changing facial hair. A twin. With no evidence other than the Marcel fight, I'll declare the Herrera loss suspicious. Never stopped. Edit- ignore the Herrera comment. Thought he was Venezuelan.
Would you really say he was inconsistent though LittleRed? I don't really know. You could maybe argue that he didn't perform the same away from home seeing how all his losses were picked up on the road and often on the opponent's home turf, but all with counterpoints: Mexico vs Saldivar (close loss); New York and PR vs Ortiz (competitive in both defeats); Columbia vs Herrera (avenged in Panama); Ecuador vs Espinosa (avenged in Panama); The Philippines vs Elorde (competitive but cleanly beaten in a cauldron of a partisan venue); Miami vs Linder. I don't know much about the Espinosa and Herrera losses ie how valid they are, while Ortiz, Elorde and Buchanan were all great fighters to varying degrees with styles well suited to tackling Laguna. Sorry, not to be belligerent or anything.
Nah you don't sound belligerent. He's not terribly inconsistent; he's not Joey giardello or Fritzie Zivic. But compared to other great.lightweights (Gans, Leonard, Duran, etc.) Who almost never lost at their peak he is. Hell he's inconsistent compared to the other great Panamanian champions like Marcel and Pedroza. There was no stretch where he was unbeatable. Conversely of course he was always tough to beat and as you noted he was road unfriendly so maybe i'm just underrating him.
No, that seems reasonable enough to me, though I think his competition was a notch above Pedroza's (who I really rate). Marcel was probably just a more complete and greater fighter/ring general when all is said and done. It would have been something in retrospect to see him in against Jofre when he was a whippersnapper. Wet behind the ears but the bigger man, and ridiculously fast/talented.
I either made a thread about that fight recently or mentioned it somewhere else on here, Vic and I discussed it. At worst he's got his size, jab and he's an absolute iron man. Even then he'd have given Jofre a real hard fight though he got much better with experience so I doubt he'd have won it, but probably similar to Caraballo only he goes the 15.
Yeah, that's probably how I see it going. Jofre was a slowish starter too, which helps, but conversely I think Ismael would be copping some heavy body punches and blowing out of his arse in the championship rounds, especially if he was tight at the weight.
I think if Laguna comes in with blood in his veins and not just sand then Jofre weighs be in a world of hurt. The Panamanian would be the bigger and faster man, which is pretty deadly.
I did a wee bit of research on him a while ago. He was at some point ranked number 1 in Bantam, Featherweight and Lightweight. Which is reallly good going IMO. He had to move up before he got a shot at Jofre but I think he could have put in a good showing, but I really dont know how good he was at Bantam compared to his Lightweight days. Looking at his Lightweight days, I think his highly mobile and slick style would have given Jofre fits, but I dont see him beating little Vic. At Featherweight he was ranked number 1 to Sugar Ramos, who Laguna could have easy have beaten, although Sugar would be a tough fight for anyone (although Saldivar might disagree). However, a young Vicente popped out of nowhere and beat Laguna in a final eliminator.
