Where would you rank Roman Gonzalez on an ATG list?

If that were the case, I think Thurman-Porter would've been repackaged as an elite, once in a decade level fight at 147 for pfp supremacy.

 

Lol what does she have to do with anything?

Roman is the man with the best resume by far. At the top level minimumweight and middleweight are apples to apples.

 

Here's the top 50-60 on boxrec at 147
50 ⬇1

Rico Mueller 108 20 1 1

28 orthodox Eberswalde, Brandenburg
51 ⬇1 Diego Cruz
Demoledor
16 3 1

22 Mexico City, Distrito Federal
52 ⬇1 Alex Saucedo
El Cholo
22 0 0

22 orthodox Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
53 ⬇1 Randall Bailey
The Knock-Out King
46 9 0

42 orthodox Miami, Florida
54 ⬇1 Roberto Arriaza
Dinamita
13 0 0

26 orthodox Masaya
55 ⬇1 Ceferino Rodriguez
Ferino V
23 1 0

28 orthodox Las Palmas, Islas Canarias
56 ⬇1 Ali Funeka
Rush Hour
39 5 3

38 orthodox Mdantsane, Eastern Cape
57 ⬇1 Carlos Gorham
Rana
16 4 0

27 Victoria, Tamaulipas
58 ⬇1 Akinori Watanabe
Ushiwakamaru Akibei
33 5 0

31 southpaw Tokyo
59 ⬇1 Francisco Santana
Chia
24 5 1

30 orthodox Santa Barbara, California
60 ⬇1 Jack Brubaker
The Ripper
11 1 1

24 orthodox Cronulla, New South Wales

Now for strawweight:
50 ➡

Jay Loto
The Mindoro Assasin
12 0 1

22 orthodox Paranaque City, Metro Manila
51 ➡ Kenichi Miyazaki 10 3 1

24 orthodox Yokohama, Kanagawa
52 ➡ Ronie Tanallon
Ultimate Warrior
9 2 1

23 southpaw General Santos City, Cotabato del Sur
53 ➡ Chanachai CP Freshmart 5 1 0



54 ➡ Andika Sabu 8 0 0

20 Kuta
55 ➡ Juan Perez 6 2 0

23 orthodox Managua
56 ➡ Tommy Seran 27 12 0

33 orthodox Surabaya
57 ➡ Lyster Jun Pronco
The Silent Penetrator
9 12 1

23 orthodox Malaybalay City, Bukidnon
58 ➡ Byron Castellon 7 6 2

24 orthodox Chichigalpa
59 ➡ Eddy Castro
Torito II
15 12 2

33 orthodox Masaya
60 ➡ Bimbo Nacionales
Sniper
14 12 1

26 orthodox Maasim, Sarangani

 

As you can see, at 147 in that range you have a former champion (Bailey) and well known contender (Funeka). The others have pretty seasoned records with high win ratios.

Take straweight, and it's a joke. There's a guy with a losing record and a couple others who are near 500.

The gulf in class is enormous.

Additionally, at 147, there's actually the motivation to earn a decent living from boxing. At straw, a select few are actually living decently off boxing.

 

How the bout would have been sold is not the point. That this fight and others would have taken place a lot sooner, when the given opponents had relative brevity in their respective records, was the speculation being made. Pound-for-Pound supremacy doesn't come into, really.

 

I think the weight margin between the bottom four weight classes is so small that one could easily combine them into a single pool of talent; and if you take that approach you would find that the pool is actually deeper than one might initially think. Over and above Gonzalez, Inoue and Estrada, you have guys like Nietes, Taguchi, Ioka, Wanheng, Concepcion, Cuadras, Mthlane, Tete, to name a few. There's enough quality (and opportunity to move up or down) to ensure that good match-ups are continuously made.

 

I don't necessarily buy the talent pool argument.
The straw-weights simply aren't popular enough for promoters to give the opportunity to thoroughly mediocre ones by putting them on professional shows. Therefore a guy with a 50% record in the strawweights is probably a better boxer than a fighter with a similar record in a higher weight division.
I mean, to even get to a pro debut in the tiny divisions you probably are expected to have some sort of talent, whereas in the higher divisions you can be a complete bum. At heavyweight you can go something like 36-1 and be a mediocre, untrained, slob, taking part in laughable circus freak shows.
Show me the equivalent at strawweight .....

 

Well, there are those other guys who beat Pacquiao, in more impressive fashion.

 

That's why I said almost.

 

It's not even "almost" though.
Mayweather's win over Pacquiao would be WAY DOWN on the list of 'best victories'.
And to be fair to Floyd, it's not his best win either.
Best payday ever BY FAR !

 

The "p4p lists" are possibly more about hype, celebrity, fame, career-achievement than current proven ability though. That's my opinion but it's hard to prove it, since any debate about the nature of "p4p" is doomed because it's so vague.

An easier way to look at it: In the relevant weight class. As a 'world class' welterweight, since late 2011/'12 Pacquaio has looked decidedly ordinary. He'd fallen to about down on the same level as Marquez and Bradley, neither will go down as great welterweights or even near-great at the weight, imo.
Pacquiao beat Bradley twice, of course, but arguably lost to Marquez in the 3rd fight too, nevermind the KO loss in the 4th fight. And Bradley beat Marquez (and drew with some other guy I forget) so it levels out.

Objectively, away from all the hype and history and money and personalities involved, this was quite a routine champion v #1 contender fight, in quite a slow-moving division where old guys are still hanging around and most top 10s don't fight each other.

 

Totally disagree. The list of boxers who can claim to have a better victory than one over Manny Pacquiao is small imo