The 10 Greatest Bantamweights

Flea, comprehensive and awesome. Keep them coming.

 

I’m a huge Rafa fan and think he’s great but got to disagree on the point about him being a better boxer than his brother. Never IMO. Earlier in their careers he was perhaps more aggressive and that paid off with wins against Austin and Johnson but he was never as technically brilliant as Juan Manuel.

I had the pleasure of seeing both fight live several times and even Juan Manuel sparring and training at Romanza gym and he was just a genius. A master of his craft.

 

Man you said Saturday or I would have been hitting refresh all morning.

Not a critique of the other rankings but I found this one to be the best writing, reading and most informative, perhaps because I did not know a ton about Williams prior to this.

You painted a picture of him though that would give credence to a top 5 placement.

Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing this with us. My knowledge of boxing pre 1930 or so is not on par. So I think I learned a bit and have a desire to look a little deeper...

When is 6 coming tomorrow or next week?

 

Question to Flea man. You said Brown lost non-title bouts against both smaller and heavier men, and site non-title losses. While I agree with you was the same standard applied to Lionel Rose?

Brown at #8 for me is slightly low, but debatable for sure.


10. Rose
9. Zarte
8. Brown

 

Nice write-ups. I’m really trying to get more knowledgeable on the eras like the 20s and 30s.

Kid Williams was one of the 10 I mentioned would have been in my personal 10 but simply being much more acquainted with Zarate for example I’d generally put Zarate higher.

I can tell for sure who five of your top six will be but not the order.

 

I can definitely see a case for Williams over Zarate yes. There’s a lot more meat to his resume. That’s always a tough gauge the depth of the resume of the guys from 50-60 years prior vs. the highs and more available footage and information on the more recent guy. I think Zarate’s standing as a Mexican legend helps get his name pushed out there more whereas you’ve got a Danish guy with an English name and limited fanfare in comparison.

I’d guess the top six would likely be Eder Jofre, Ruben Olivares, Manuel Ortiz, Pete Herman, Fighting Harada and if I was to harbor a guess at the sixth I’d go have a guess at Joe Lynch.

Order is tough to guess but perhaps in that order listed too. Harada is a tricky one because he got two wins over Jofre (who’s generally #1 rightly so) but a case can be made that he lost both fights and some of those defenses whilst very high quality foes were almost either way type fights (Medel II, Caraballo, Rudkin) before getting soundly outboxed by Rose. I think Harada is unquestionably a great, great fighter but Jofre of a year or two prior likely finishes him the way Medel did in fight I. I personally scored fight I for Jofre (he landed cleaner and blocked a lot) and had fight II a draw (because Harada lost a point) though it felt like a 1-1 type series.

It’s all tough to assess. Manuel Ortiz is overlooked so often too and had a far better reign than Olivares did but Olivares caliber of opponent was so good that it’s hard for me at least to consider Ortiz ahead.

 

I think Jofre was just being classy and also given the crowds noise probably felt it wasn’t going his way. I’ve heard him say he felt he won. He also said on “Quebrando a Cara” that Japanese people told him “you won”. Fighters always think they won close fights though. It was a very close fight. I believe he made a comment after the weigh-in joking that he’d eat his way to heavyweight. He’d been struggling for about five years to make that weight.

He did look a lot more tired in the re-match. He started well but it was clear to see he’d emptied his tank by the late rounds. Testimonant to his greatness that he would come back three years later and go 25-0 and become a great Featherweight. What a fighter.