How good or bad was it? I know he cleaned out the division, but the opposition wasn't exactly stellar. Now, I'm not saying Whitaker wasn't great at LW. He's a top 3-5 ATG at that weight, IMO. It's just that it was a relatively weak division at the time. What do you think? Was the division just weak, or was Whitaker just that good?
Haugen was never a true great, but he was still the reigning champ, and he also beat Roger Mayweather on the way up, and also beat a still-tricky Jorge Paez and Azumah Nelson. Nazario was a mess, he was awful, and Louie Lomeli didn't belong, but he twice thrashed Ramirez (despite what the scorecards read) and he was quite good. I don't know, does it really look that much worse than Duran's opposition at 135?
Well Buchanan was the best of course, and Dejesus, but it gets thin after that. Lampkin was pretty good, Viruet was a pure spoiler though certainly not great by any means. That leaves guys like Robertson, Bizarro, Rojas, Ortiz.........not exactly a Murderers Row compared to the people on Whitaker's ledger. Not saying these fighters were incompetent or anything, but they're on a par I think with most champions, if you think about it. I've often wondered if we don't overrate Dejesus terribly......looking at his own record, aside from the first Duran fight, there aren't many names there that don't represent his losses.
Great post. Duran was a great lightweight but the overall competition at that weight wasn't great. Arguello should have moved up sooner. That would have been a great fight around late '78, early '79. Those two just miseed one another. I think the overall quality of the Lightweight division was better from 1980-1987 period, than the period that Whitaker ruled. I have a feeling he could have unified then, too, but it would have been much tougher: Think about it, that time period had the likes of Arguello, prime Rosario, Prime Ramirez, Chavez, prime Camacho, Jimmy Paul, prime Haughen, prime Bramble, prime Mancini, and contenders like Boza, Terrence Ali, Freddie Pentleton and Frankie Randall. Whitaker's period, when he was a prime Lightweight, 1988-1992, wasn't as good. Whitaker did beat Haughen, Ramirez and Pendleton, who bridged both periods at 135 lbs, but if Whitaker had come around a few years earlier, I think his overall competiton would have been tougher at 135 lbs.
Maybe the competition at LW wasn't that good, but the fact is that both Duran and Whitaker cleaned out the division, and that deserves some praise. They fought everyone that was put in front of them, and that's all you can really ask of a fighter.
I thought Whitaker beat some pretty good fighters at 135, but I agree with you. He really didn't duck anyone at that class and was one of the few of his era to unify a division.
