Greatest Spanish boxer ever?

No...last month. Damn, I can't remember the name. HUUUUGE underdog.

 

Sandor Martin win over Mikey Garcia.

 

If Cuban fighters are disqualified then I'm assuming so are Puerto Rican and South American fighters, and United States fighters of Spanish Heritage only. If that's the case, I'd put forth the name Paolino Uzcudun. He was born, raised, lived, and died, in Spain. And he was, arguably, the best Heavyweight to ever come from Spain.

 

Ahh, right you are! Completely forgot about that..Martín was a 10/1 underdog - so, even bigger than Kiko. Both massive road victories in their opponents' backyards, no less.

 

How quickly boxing fans forget lol.

Yeah maybe not "the greatest Spanish boxer" but up there in "Greatest WINS by a Spanish boxer".

 

Yeah that one alone doesn't put him up in the country's Mount Rushmore, as Mikey had been keeping only tepid passion for the sport for many years and looked quite poor overall at welter, and just two bouts prior had uncompetitively lost the biggest of his career. So, that's a somewhat compromised "not as good as it sounds (or would have been a few years earlier)" W...although still a very nice feather in Sandor's cap.

 

Btw regarding the commentators calling Kiko the GOAT of Spain ...in fairness, the seeds of that were planted by Sergio himself (the very man that, if you relax criteria enough to allow foreign-born yet Spanish-based fighters, would be the undisputed p4p GOAT) so they're not very well going to just mug off his word lightly...and of course he's going to be perhaps a slight biased in that as he's the promoter of his friend/fellow Martínez.

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(48 seconds in)

 

Augustin Senin retired as undefeated European bantamweight champion in the 70's, with a win over a still viable Alan Rudkin. Had he been able to secure a crack at Rafael Herrera or Enrique Pinder and won a championship, he might be worthy of consideration. But, he didn't, and is therefore just an interesting footnote.

Anyway, I'm hesitant to give the nod to Carrasco, since he appeared to be handed his world championship via partisan DQ when he appeared to be on the verge of being stopped in the first fight with Ramos. To his credit, he fought well in their next two fights, but that initial fight is a bit too much for me to completely overlook. Same with Miguel Velasquez.

Think Kiko has a pretty decent case for best native Spaniard after yesterday's fight, actually.

 

Notable that he was able to secure a crack at the world title ,but got blasted out by Freddie Miller in one in his only challenge. His other notable zult seems to be a draw with Panama Al Brown. Lost a number of fights by DQ, so he seems to be one of Spain's filthiest fighters, at any rate.

 

I don't mean to sound like a racialist or anything but does anybody have any proof at all to support the contention on page one that Kalambay isn't also ethnically Italian?

 

Got curious and poked around some actual Spanish-language corners of the boxing internet fandom, to get a sense of what they believe (seems germane, no? ) and internally it appears Castillejo is well-respected but not considered on the same tier as Legrá, Carrasco, and Uzcudun ...with shouts as well for Pepe Durán (knocked out Koichi Wajima to lift the WBA strap at 154 in the mid seventies) and Ignacio Ara (was briefly Euro champ at middleweight, as well as 2x national champ both at 160lbs - with ten defenses in his latter reign - and 2x at 175lbs; his greatest foil was Marcel Thil, who beat him thrice).

A generational divide seems to be in play, however - many younger fans in Spain insist Castillejo is up there.

Legrá is the accepted near-consensus #1, guess they've no problem claiming him. Strange they wouldn't also hold the umbrella over Sergio then.

 

Anecdotal, but.. I once saw him lift a forkful of spaghetti to his mouth straight from the plate, no twirl. Nuff said.

 

Have scrounged up barely a minute of footage on Ara:

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Quite a bit more to be had on Pepe, it seems (makes sense, as he's a few decades the more modern) - at the very least the full Wajima fight is there.

 

I actually distractedly looked at this earlier and thought it was on the thread with Stevenson/Wilder after the Arreola comments. This is an entirely different context altogether. I just did kind of a shoulder shrug/head tilt then.

 

But it still kind of made sense also...