I'd favour Ortiz in a closeish but clear fight I think. Other than being that bit nimbler and more complete as a package, he had the size and strength not to be bullied by Cervantes and also the skill to compete with him at range and force him to lead when necessary. He was at least a similar calibre of counter-puncher too and probably had the edge in hand and footspeed. All pretty small individual advantages when said and done but I'd imagine they'd stack up enough to see him home in an extremely high quality fight.
Excellent post, but I think I'm going the other way. Cervantes by close decision. I disagree about Ortiz being faster. I think the mid 70s Cervantes was clearly a quicker handed guy than Carlos. I guess for me it comes down to Cervantes having the firepower to hurt Ortiz, and the skill and range to land on him. What he did to DeJesus stacks up to any Ortiz performance. Two amazing fighters though it would be close. I just think Pambele would score a knockdown of Orriz which might edge it in his favor.
