Paez obviously had his best days as a featherweight where he held his title for almost 2 years. He fought in the last 15 round World Championship fight Ever. Paez originally a circus clown used clever and unorthodox tactics and his fast hands to dethrone Calvin Grove. In that fight he dropped Grove 3 times in the final round to win by a narrow margin. When Mexican Boxing is discussed on ESB forums his name is never mentioned although he had participated in some very good fights win or lose. Although he lost to Pernell Whitaker it was by no means an easy fight for Whitaker. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9vE33zvH4g[/ame]
Paez was a good fighter, but I was never a fan of all that showman crap wearing skirts and tassles and fighting long boring fights. He couldnt crack an egg and him and Camacho kind of tried to outdo each other during that time and it was a little ridiculous. I just wasnt into it, especially when you had Tyson coming out with just a towel on and wrecking opponents. That was far more exciting.
Paez was teak tough and was an excellent plus for boxing for many years. But as mentioned, there came a point when the showman overtook the fighter, and I lost interest with him after the Spann fight.
I started a thread about Paez not too long ago. Here was my thoughts on him: http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=180413 In a nutshell, I was always pretty impressed with his hand-speed and technical/counterpunching skill. He looked to me like he might've been capable of having a longer title reign than he did, but his weight problems and other limitations undermined him. I actually thought he might've been as good or perhaps even better as a LW than he had been as a FW, as he wasn't draining himself as much to make weight and seemed stronger and more consistent in his attack. He gave Whitaker a very respectable fight, perhaps the closest/toughest fight Pea had in defense of his LW title (and I'd say an even better fight than Chavez would later give him). Still, his fights with Whitaker, Dorsey, Lopez, and Ruelas all showed that an opponent who wasn't bedazzled by his trickery and forced him to fight at a constant pace could take him.
Good summary! I always felt that he was to preoccupied to take boxing seriously. Being that he was from a Circus he was too busy being the showman to dedicate himself to developing fully. His flashiness tended not to be too popular in Mexico with the hardcore fans, he drew mostly the general public to watch his fights. However, he deserves more recognition than he is getting... a bubble Hall of Famer perhaps.
If you don't want to sit through the video, guys, just please indulge me and skip to 4:15 and wait for Richard Steele's facial expression to show up and tell me it's not hilarious.
The best part of that video is Peaz' lil dance in Steele's face. You could tell Steele had enough of that **** to last him a lifetime. I was actually thinking of Paez today and trying to think of where he would rank in the 130 lb division. I think there's a decent chance he'd be one of the top guys there.
I did not mean he was busy with the circus, but rather that he was always focused on making the entire fight experience entertaining: dancing his way into the ring, dancing during the introduction, dancing after the fight, the flashy wardrobe, etc... Imagine if he would have just trained with more focus and would have picked his opponents with caution not just by the payday, what could have been?
Well Paez was short, liked to mix it up and didnt have a lot of power. I actually think he did very well for having a style like he did with such poor punching power. I do agree that he seemed more concerned at times about his haircut and ring entrance than the actual fight.
Fun little fighter to watch. He was a star, and the ratings he did were enormous. He outrated the likes of Razor Ruddock and other heavies in the early 90s, which is very impressive. He was reasonable good technician but lacked the one punch power and also was a bit inconsistent. Still he made Whitaker look very ordinary in stretches and pushed some bigger guys despite lacking the size of a true lightweight.
