Okay, kind of an obscure topic, but after 4 years of posting here, I've run out of things to talk about.... Juan Carlos Gomez is now a heavyweight, but began his career in the cruiser division.. He held the WBC fraction through some 11 title bouts, or thereabouts, and left the weight class undefeated in 34 bouts.. I ask others if they felt he was one of the better cruiserweights of all time, perhaps top 5-10? I never saw him fight in that class, but his record looks pretty good there.... What do you guys think?
He was very sharp and for a young division like that and the defenses, sure. Fair ranking. I think he's one of the most talented boxers at heavyweight right now, actually, for whatever that says to anyone. But, yeah, he's quite crafty and naturally talented, tough Southpaw, good body puncher, has underrated pop (at CW) but right now has the dedication of someone who is just an older athlete that is hanging around for money, wanting to fight people on a near-exhibition level without having to train properly and be fit but...well, look at his last few opponents and where and you can see what he's doing at heavyweight. The point is, yes, one of the better CWs we've had after the obvious top tier Holyfield, Sugar, Qawi guys. Him and Jirov I think are pretty underrated there. These were damn solid guys. His heavyweight showings could unfortunately lead people to not looking at his cruiserweight career and write him off, although I think he makes for a pretty good heavyweight, oddly, just fat.
LOL.. I understand what you mean.. Gomez was obviously a big man, perhaps unusually big to be fighting at 190 lbs.. I wonder if his heavy weight career might have gone further had he started there at an earlier period in his career, when maintaining conditioning might have been easier.
Yeah, he was big, you might be right about if he went earlier. I don't see him ever being "the man" as in beating Lennox, Vitali or Wlad during their respective times as head heavyweight, but picking up a title like Peter, Maskaev, Ruiz, etc...I can see that for sure.
He had some real nice efforts at cruiser. And aside from Holyfield, the rest of the cruisers really are not all that impressive. A southpaw boxer type like Gomez is as good as anyone else, but the division has only had 1 HOF type guy and lots of good fighters in it. His best fight at cruiser may have been the Cole fight & he sure looked good in that one.
