Where does Tito rank at WW?

He was tied 20th in the ESB poll:

1. 1049 Sugar Ray Robinson (41)
2. 524 Sugar Ray Leonard
3. 322 Henry Armstrong
4. 301 Jose Napoles
5. 275 Kid Gavilan
6. 207 Emile Griffith
7. 174 Tommy Hearns
8. 129 Luis Rodriguez
9. 111 Barbados Joe Walcott
10. 87 Mickey Walker
11. 66 Roberto Duran
12. 53 Carmen Basillo
13. 47 Charles Burley
14. 42 Jack Britton
15. 39 Tommy Ryan (1)
16. 26 Sam Langford (1)
17. 25 Pernell Whitaker
18. 24 Don Curry
19. 21 Jimmy Mclarnin
20. 19 [tie] Felix Trinidad
20. 19 [tie] Barney Ross

 

Yeah, Trinidad picked up the lineal title...against Oscar De La Hoya, in a robbery. Then he vacated it. Probably that explains his low ranking in the ESB poll.

 

Six defences of the lineal title, which he only lost in an outright robbery surely gets him into the twenty?

 

No, I don't agree with this. There's absolutely no way to score Tito-Oscar for Tito reasonably, by my eye. Whatever the details of Griffith-LMR, the facts are that that three times in four fights, ringside reporters scored for Griffith and three times in four fights, the judges scored for Griffith. Real result: 3-1 Griffith.

Floyd has one successful defence.

 

Disagree:


I think Oscar was legitimately hurt in the 6th and this is probably the meat of what went wrong here. I'm not sure how I feel about the fight overall for Oscar's legacy. It was shown, as you say, that he was made to feel gunshy which is a slight black mark, additionally a combination of a **** Quartey fight plan, good small-move De La Hoya footwork pretty much took Ike's jab away, partially. This renders him an, I don't want to say "ordinary", but limited fighter offensively. He's not great on defence. Why isn't Oscar abusing him?

Still, you can't deny his courage and I for one thought he deserved it.

OSCAR: 1,2,3,4,10,12
QUARTEY: 5,6,7,8,9,11

114-113 OSCAR



Oscar De La Hoya UD12 Pernell Whitaker

OSCAR 2,3,4,7,8,10,12
PEA: 1,5,6,9,11

7-5 Oscar De La Hoya

For the first time ever one of my cards matches Lederman's exactly, I gave exactly the same rounds to each man. It is quite a difficult fight to score and that's reflected in the scorers ringside. Lederman gave it to Oscar, Merchant gave it to Whitaker or saw it a draw depending on what he did with the last round, 3 judges gave it to Oscar, 11 writers gave it to Oscar and 14 writers gave it Whitaker. I make that a dead heat if Merchant found a way to give the twelfth to Whitaker, the slimmest of edges to De La Hoya if he scored the 12th otherwise.

Pea looked like he was going to take it based upon round one, Oscar just looked legitimately befuddled in mp opinion but Oscar was able to up his workrate and just take some chances. His original plan to walk through a fighter who wouldn't even be there if you got there was obviously ludicrous, but the boiled down version worked well for him in about the 17th fight where the HBO crew tells us that Oscar's best punch is his left hook but he can't throw it tonight.

The ludicrous WBC rule regarding accidental headbutts set Pernell a real stall and after he lost the third and fourth on my card I had my doubts, but he put together his only two rounds in a row in the fight in 5 and 6 to make it competitive again and combined with the messy knock down (which evened things up nicely on the cards Karma-wise) he was right back in the fight. Unfortunately for him, Oscar just knows judges and he upeed his game after the 9th and again in the 12th. As we now know, he needn't have bothered his ****, but it was a good determined play.

A real what-you-prefer type of fight, and personally I like to score for the guy that learned the more hurtful punches. I thought it was interesting the way Oscar abandoned his own jab, just like he would against Mayweather years later...I think he thinks he can't throw it when he's being out-boxed, he just needs the statement punches. It worked for him here, but with diminishing returns on his speed, he would get caught out next time.

I do think that Whitaker looked old. Whenever I watch him in his younger days he looks unnatural in the ring he is having such a good time. He always looks to me like he's playng basketball when he's boxing, but here things had a bitter twist - he wasn't quite fast enough.

A word for Oscar's corner who were pitiful. In the rounds that turned the fight around, the third and the fourth, he had great success choping Whitkaer out of clinches and giving him a push here and there. The corner shat it off the cut and read the fight all wrong when they demanded their man stay outside. I think Oscar new it too. Shame he didn't heed his own heart over the matter, he may have won this clean.

 

We know the score.

 

Most definitely. I think any narrow score is acceptable.

I had it 9-3, but this is extreme.