Chavez with his relentless body attack. I thought Ramirez was having a lot of success early against Taylor with his pressure and body work. Chavez was as good of a body puncher as anyone and was obviously a much more complete fighter than Ramirez. I thought tonight's fight was outstanding and Taylor proved that he is an excellent fighter.
Taylor still gets hit a bit too much for my liking and can be drawn into the wrong kind of fight, not always utilising his skills to his best advantage. He's such a good fighter that, despite this tendency, he's still cleaned house at 140 - but Chavez is better than Prograis, and a whole different universe to Postol, Baranchyk and Ramirez. I think Chavez either stops him late or dominates the championship rounds to leave Taylor looking pretty bloodied and defeated by the final bell based on what we've seen of Taylor so far. But I do see the fight being competitive and interesting beforehand.
I'm curious how you scored it last night Chris? I thought 114-112 by all three judges was outrageous. I gave Ramirez the 3rd, 4th, and 12th but that's it. Scary to think had Taylor not dropped him twice it would have been a draw.
Completely agree that the cards were too generous to Ramirez. If you wanted to be kind to the judges, you could reason that maybe it was one of those fights where Taylor won most of his rounds very clearly whereas Ramirez only just snuck home in his, hence their scores were a product of the vagaries of the ten point must system and maybe gave a bit of a false impression of how close it actually was. Unfortunately us fans have been around too long and seen that kind of stuff too many times to give them the benefit of the doubt, and I think you'd have to be bending over backwards and actively looking for reasons to give Ramirez rounds to come up with 114-112. I had it 116-111. I gave Ramirez the 3rd, 9th, 10th and 12th with the 5th even. Will have to watch it again but my impression was that, even without the knockdowns, Taylor won a relatively competitive, but not all that close fight. With the two 10-8s though it was clear as day.
Fairly Competitive until about the 6th or 7th then Chavez starts beating Taylor up and stops him late or wins a UD.
Chavez was still at 130 in his 20th fight so the fight wouldn't have happened. Although I get your point.
Chavez fought 62 times ( I may be off one or two) at LW or below before fighting at SLW or 140 pounds. In that bout he defeated Roger Mayweather for the WBO SLW title. In his 20th fight at SLW (140) he defeated Hector Camacho for the WBC title. JCC was 27 at the time of his first 140 pound fight; Taylor was 23 I believe. Of those 20 fights his opponents included (with their record at the time): Kenny Vice (26-3) Alberto Cortes (44-0) Meldrick Taylor (24-0) Jamie Balboa (44-12) Kyung Duk Ahn (29-1) John Duplessis (36-1) Tommy Small (23-3) Lonnie Smith (28-3-1) Jorge Melian (25-4) Juan Soberanes (39-7) Angel Hernandez (37-0) Frankie Mitchell (29-1) He KO'd nearly all of them. There is a reason JCC Sr is a HOFer and is beloved in Mexico. I'm not sure if Taylor is beloved in Edinburgh. There is no comparison to be made between Taylors first 20 fights and Chavez' first 20 fights at 140. Based on level of opposition, you'd have so say undoubtedly Chavez would KO Taylor or win a UD.
I've seen very little of Taylor, so take it for what you will, but from what I have seen, Chavez slows him down and chops him up. Chavez was a force of nature at times.
