Just watched his great bout with Espadas (the first one) Lopez from what I have seen looks to be a real tidy outside pure boxer. Creates angles well and has some nice quick straight shots. His movement looks alright and he is fairly quick. He shows some good counterpunching skills in the pocket but is often overwhelmed up close due to his physical limitations. Obviously pretty small for a Flyweight and lacked strength, but a classy boxer. What do you guys think of him?
I like that round up of him GPate. He was another of those very smooth Panamanians that was pleasing to the eye. But had his limitations in other areas.
Thanks Definitly, I think he is not quite as mobile as Laguna or as slick (in head movement) as Marcel or Pedroza - but he is more well rounded in those areas as in mobile, good head movement. He is nice to watch, I really love the way he jabs changes his angle by stepping to the side then pumps a lead right down the pipe on his turning opponent. In the mid-late rounds against Espadas he was really outboxing him. One thing I did notice Lopez seemed to have an alright chin but once he was hurt, he stayed hurt. Like Espadas drops him twice in the 12th but Lopez is still hurt in the 13th and just can't recover.
Lack of durability seemed to be a primary issue. I had him up against Gushiken prior to that 7th round. I'd love to see his fight with a young Zapata.
I thought Gushiken was just edging their fight, it was a brilliant fight to watch. And I agree would love to see teh Zapata fight, just to see how he beat Zapata
I was following Lopez' progress at the time and thought he was something else from what I was reading. When he was beating Sallavarria and Oguma he was something else. Oguma gave all the top dogs at the time problems but Lopez handled him (including dropping him). As for Sallavarria, he didn't have alot of KO's to his credit if memory serves me, but I saw him fight and believe me, he had heavy hands. The KO to Espadas (in which he was winning) changed all that. One of those cases where he was just never the same. He had a good chin up until that time, but that was it. Shaky after that. He would pull out some nice wins after the Espadas fights, but that was due to sticking to his nice boxing. The big sluggers took aim on him thereafter. Scartissue
I'll have to give it a watch again. Thanks for that, good insight. It is, that was also past Lopez's prime
Good fighter and very solid technician as stated. I recently watched him losing to Baby Sugar Rojas (nearly forgotten good fighter). Lopez had some serious competition in his era and seemed to fall a little short of these guys.
THE LITTLE TRACTOR!. Lopez was finished by the time he fought Chang and Rojas, albeit he was usually still savvy enough to make for a tough journeyman for most other than Chang. Great little boxer in his prime.had all the smooth skills you expect from the top panamanian fighters of that era, just not the raw physical attributes of Laguna, marcel etc.. After the great Espadas fights his chin was a downright liability, and as scartissue says, probably never got over the late knockouts mentally.He got his sharpnes back together for the challenge against Gushiken though, and made a slow starting Gushiken look hittable and a bit confused for a while early on.The Flyweight McCallum vs Curry in a way. Peak Lopez vs Canto and Park would have been great fights to watch.
His fight with Shoji Oguma is out there I believe (have seen it on a certain trader's list). I'm trying to get my greedy little paws on it. Lopez was 23-0 at the time and squarely in his prime. That's the fight to look for if you want to see a prime fonz.
Sounds good. Did he not drop Oguma? I rate Oguma pretty highly in ability, solid southpaw boxer-puncher.
Haven't seen it mate, but I'll let you know if I ever do. Oguma was indeed a fine little fighter. His fights with Park and Gonzalez are essential viewing.