Nelson would have handled Cowdell better than Sanchez did, and would've stopped him sooner than the last round.
Sanchez would have out-boxed Jim better than Nelson did before stopping him, I`m not doubting Nelson`s power, it`s just hiis boxing was very limited v McDonald.
Sanchez was more skilled than Nelson but Nelson destroyed Cowdell with raw power, McDonald largely thwarted Nelson`s power before gassing badly.
That`s cause Nelson caught Cowdell early with a great shot, I`m talking about skill level not power, McDonald dealt with Nelson`s power far better than Cowdell did.
Nelson didn`t look better v Laporte than Sanchez did because Laporte could handle Nelson`s power better than Cowdell could.
That's a huge guess Mark. Whitaker was putting on absolute clinics at that stage of his career. He would have beaten Sal handily i bet.
Agreed .. I think Nelson is an all time great fighter nd grossly underrated here .. It would not shock me if a prime Nelson beat Sanchez ..
The prime Whitaker was an exceptional fighter .. he went years off his career defending titles and hardly losing a round . While Sanchez would offer a different stylistic matchup for Whitaker than Nelson the fact remains that while Sanchez was a terrific featherweight, Whitaker was an exceptional lightweight and would have defeated Sanchez definitively ..
Sal never had a serious fight at junior lightweight let alone lightweight you know? Noway could you be so confident given the facts. Pretty big ask moving up two divisions to take on what is possibly a top 2 H2H lightweight ever (certainly unequivocally top 5 imo) and one who has all the stylistic advantages besides size. Speed and slickness of an ATG level was a pretty handy thing to have against a Sanchez going up two divisions.