Alexis arguello or carlos monzon?

No prob.

Again. How can somebody be as successful as Benvenuti proved to be if your observation is right?

Mazzinghi certainly was no domestic/European level fighter. Neither were Don Fullmer, Emile Griffith, Louis Rodriguiz or Dick Tiger. In fact three of them are atgs. And he is 7-2 against those 5.
He was a very good boxer puncher, he did nothing special but was good at everything and he kept his power in the late rounds.

I made a grammatically mistake there, sorry, English isn´t my first language. I wanted to say people thought Benvenuti would be champ for the next years.

How is that arbitrary? One fighter wins one of four belts and defends it a few time until he unifies. Of course he is only the champ after he unified.
The other has all the belts and is stripped of one, not losing it in the ring. How is he not the champ anymore? Just because one corrupt organization stripped him? And he proved that he was the champ by beating the man who won the title he was stripped of two times despite that guy beeing in his prime while himself getting older.

True but you argued that Hopkins was champion for longer than Monzon and made more title defences. Which is not true.

 

He even admits it himself:

source

 

The main difference is that Arguello challenged bigger guys and won, whereas Monzon challenged a lot of smaller guys and never moved up in weight. That makes Arguello better P4P IMO.

Also, Greb > Monzon at middleweight.

 

What bigger fighters did Arguello beat?

 

I was directing that particular comment at his LMW record. Top 3 seems a bit of a stretch, though admittedly I'm not sure how I'd rank the best LMWs.

I've always perceived him to be a bit average. It's weird, actually - he seems to have a lot of talent, and he was obviously a sparkling amateur. He just seems to lack that killer instinct at times, lacking output and variety, struggling to adjust, and even made rookie defensive errors - especially vs. Monzon. I mean he was really getting hit with some absolutely absurd, ridiculous stuff - even in the first couple of rounds, those left hooks should never have got in.

Well, it's not unusual for people to over-rate their champions. People thought Hopkins would never beat Tito because of his reputation. Freddie Pacheco had Whitaker/Chavez even after 10. There are countless examples.

Well, it's just a random criterion to use. If a guy has most of the belts but can't get at it because some paper titleist has holed himself up in his home country with a "corrupt" sanctioning body behind him, is he still not the champ?

It depends what you class as a defence, obviously. How many defences does Wlad have? Quite a few, despite not being undisputed.

 

Most of Monzon's opposition were legit middleweights, how was he challenging a lot of smaller guys?.In fact all of them were established and proven at the weight except napoles.


Criticise him for not moving up to 175 if you feel like it by all means, but some of the only had good wins against past it smaller guys is going way over the top.


As far as height and reach goes both tended to have an advantage.

 

Good counter argument, fighters do have off days, still at 32 and not living the life, what are the chances he was at his best? I also would assume he'd be up for someone like Dick Tiger

 

The guys he beat at lightweight and jr welterweight? He started at featherweight remember.

 

I believe Benvenuti suffered a broken hand against Tiger. He wasn't the most consistent performer though and his career did seem to be winding down at the time he faced Monzon, who knocked him out brutally.

 

I wouldn't disagree with that, but his great opponents were smaller. Its the same situation as Hagler/Hopkins where the big opponents are merely very good and the small 1s are greats. And the argument works against the lot of them

Napoles=DLH=Duran
Griffith/Benvenuti=Hearns/Leonard=Trinidad/Winky

Who is the best natural MW the 3 have faced? Briscoe? Minter? Sibson? Holmes? Valdez? Antuofermo? Taylor? Pavlik? Roldan? Hamsho? (well aside from Jones Jr)

 

That doesn't mean hes outsized, its like saying Pacquaio started at Flyweight so he must have been smaller than Barrera/Marquez, when he was actually bigger than them

 

The comparison is valid. But Duran and Napoles are clearly better than DLH. And Monzon and Hopkins dominated their opponents while Hagler had trouble. Monzon is the only one of the three with quality AND dominance.

The difference is Griffith is a borderline Top10 all-time mw, Benvenuti is a Top20 all-time mw. None of the others are up there. Quality goes for Monzon.

The best of those? Valdez. Briscoe is close though.

Hopkins didn´t fight Pavlik at mw.

Sorry but you are just strengthening the argument for Monzon.

 

Well, he entered the world level with a bang against Mazzinghi. But even than he fought mostly at mw and not at lmw.

Read the article i linked above. He talks about it there. He says he had no motivation then anymore. He already had everything, the title, the fame, the money.
He also said the higher regarded his oponent was the more he trained. He trained like crazy for Griffith one but did barely any training for Kim because he thought he would KO him anyway.
You can, and have to, knock him for that but when he was up to it he was a handfull for anybody. Ask Griffith or Rodriguez.

I was not talking about Benvenuti´s people but the boxing crowd. Yes, they are wrong. They are also right quite often.

Nah, it is not. There is a championship. It is won and lost in the ring and not given to a fighter by the perception of peoples. Hopkins won it against Trinidad, Monzon against Benvenuti. Monzon never lost it in the ring. Hopkins did. Monzon made 14 defences of the championship. Hopkins 6.

Beeing the champ and beeing undisputed is something different. Hopkins was the champ when he won the title against Trinidad. He was undisputed when he beat DLH.

 

:good

Hm, personally I like Hopkins performances against Johnson, Trinidad, Tarver and Pavlik better than any Monzon fight. But that´s just me beeing a Hopkins fan.

:good