My reading of the lists that have Lopez that high, like the Bert Sugar one, for instance, is that Lopez is placed on reputation more than the context of his achievements. This sort of thing has become commonplace in the boxing world. Calzaghe, Mayweather, etc. all have supporters who regularly exaggerate their credentials because of the '0' in the loss column. I would be willing to bet that Sugar didn't see a whole lot of Lopez and his top-100 overall isn't that impressive; far less impressive than Matt McGrain's, to be honest, and McGrain rightly omits Lopez. Lopez was a fine little boxer-puncher but dominating an absolutely awful division that almost no recognized as legitimate (The Ring didn't rank strawweight until Alvarez made Lopez look human), all while missing just about all of the best fighters of his day (Carbajal, Gonzalez, Arbachakov, Johnson, etc.) is not a career that stands a comparison to Gonzalez. "Chocolatito" took far greater risks; was more effective in more divisions; was the Flyweight Champion, a status that carries much greater historical significance than anything strawweight has to offer; and, the most important metric of them all, defeated much better opposition.
Ricardo Lopez Reflects on Nearly Facing Manny Pacquiao - Boxing News (*******.com) Based on the article above, Pacquaio passed on the fight. I don't think Lopez was too concerned about an 18 year old Manny. Plus, he wouldn't have gotten much credit for the win. For all intents and purposes, I view Manny's career through two lenses: pre and post Ledwaba. I view Finito as an even more technical JMM. I just don't see young Manny beating that with whoever was training him at the time and Murad Muhammad screwing him any which way he could.
Obviously this all comes down to mere opinions. You and McGrain might disagree with Sugar's take( as well as countless of others who agreed with him) on Finito but your opinion is just that and doesn't hold any more weight. And you can't really judge a fighter on things he didn't do only on his actual accomplishments. People like to bring up the Carbajal, Gonzalez stuff now but at the time they were all busy doing their own thing, it wasn't until close to Finito's retirement that that people started coming up with those shoulda, woulda, coulda dream scenarios. And let's not forget that Lopez went on to demolish the guy that dethroned Chiquita, who had two victories over Carbajal. Just food for thought. My personal take is that Finito's accomplishments(up there with Joe Louis) were more impressive. Also, I saw enough of both Choco and Finito to be convinced that hdh Lopez was overall the better fighter. Quicker, smarter, one punch KO power, good chin and stamina. That would have trumped Gonzalez's exemplary work rate. There is a reason Finito has often been referred to as a perfect fighter(close to perfect for some). Gonzalez has never looked as "unbeatable" as Ricardo Lopez usually did.
So you're just basing this on the number of title defenses? Ricardo Lopez 21. Sven Ottke 20. Artur Grigorian 17. He's a regular Omar Narvaez with all those. Gonzalez actually defeated live bodies. Estrada is a fellow pound for pound fighter. Yeah, because he never fought anybody who wasn't mediocre.
Gonzalez's 4 division run looks impressive overall but when you look at those runs individually, not so much. Minimumweight: Meh LightFlyweight: ok, but mostly "mediocre"(as you put it) opponents. FLyweight: A decent run but that's about it. Superflyweight. 3 losses to his 2 best opponents. You seem highly impressed by Gonzalez's 4 division run but he is not even close to being the best 4 division champ ever. Chocolatito's was never as impressive and/or dominant as Finito during his reign. Gonzalez is probably the best little fighter of his generation Finito is the best little fighter of all time.
Ricardo Lopez was brilliant, and perhaps he'd defeat Chocolatito at 105, but there's no basis for saying he's greater. Gonzalez continued to dominate at a weight class Lopez never visited - without a draw to his name - and then he went up another weight class (currently boxing's best), in which two of his three losses are disputed. SFW is not ideal for the 5'3" Gonzalez. It's there for all to see. He finds its harder to break people down, relying more on volume, but then he arguably just beat the #1. He's still able to get that battle-worn, 33-year-old body to perform at the highest level. If it wasn't obvious a few years ago it should be now - the Nicaraguan has more depth.
With all due respect, an opinion is measured by the validity of its content, not whether an authority holds it to be true or a lot of people hold it to be true. Sugar is not considered an esteemed historian in terms of knowledge, nor are the "countless others" to be highly regarded. It is not as if I do not respect Sugar in some capacity or that the collective evaluations of Lopez are entirely off (Lopez was a skilled technician), but the fact is strawweight is not a blip on the vast majority of fans' radars and I haven't met even a handful of people who could be classified as experts on Lopez's career. I saw a lot of Lopez's career, which separates me on some level to others. A fighter's accomplishments are in part their responsibility and we judge according to that all of the time. Showing initiative is one of the most prominent drivers in our assessments of boxers. Do they want the best? Will they travel? Are they fair? So long as the context is relevant, you can criticize a boxer for what they did not do. With Lopez being a champion and having decent exposure on Don King's undercards, he held more tools to control his destiny than others below 118 and he chose not to challenge himself. I believe 105 warrants a special case, as well, seeing as virtually no one thought of it is a worthwhile class (many still do not). That is one of the reasons few called for these bouts during the 1990s because few cared. Those misses are not irrelevant, however. Since the actual accomplishments are what matters, I think it is accurate to state that Lopez's defenses have no resemblance to Louis' besides looking similar numerically. Louis fought 11 Hall-of-Famers, 9 during his historic title run. Lopez fought 0 and missed the only one at strawweight during his reign (Myung-woo). Inductees Carbajal, Gonzalez, Johnson, and a borderline entrant in Arbachakov were within 3-7 pounds of him. Louis was the king of boxing's glamour division; Lopez was "the man" of one the mostly thinly-talented classes ever. I can respect the idea that Lopez may have been better head-to-head, but as I often note, appearing and being are not mutually inclusive. Boxing is full of guys who look the part. The difference between Roman Gonzalez and Ricardo Lopez is that the former showed he was great while the latter was more about looking great. Lopez's best opponents were Rosendo Alvarez and Saman Sorjaturong. Sorjaturong was green when he met Lopez (he was 1-1-1 going in) and Alvarez gave him hell two times, with many believing he won the first fight, myself included. I do not think I am stretching by classifying Estrada, Rungvisai, Cuadras (who has a win over Rungvisai and gave Estrada and Gonzalez competitive fights), Arroyo, Yaegashi, Viloria, etc. as being much better overall than anything Lopez competed with. The point is that Gonzalez competed at a higher level, did so more consistently, overcame superior opposition, gave up greater advantages to achieve it, and was the Champion at flyweight--a division with far greater reverence than strawweight. Even being years past his prime and suffering a vicious knockout he is arguably the #1 115-pounder in the world and the class has roughly 4 of the top-15 fighters in the world competing there. You could credibly say that Gonzalez should be 52-1 (41 KOs) despite these obstacles.
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Chocolatito easily ranks higher than Finito without a doubt. He’s been the far greater fighter for the past couple years now. Let’s not kid ourselves here. Finito is one of my personal favorite fighters but I'm also realistic as well. Love his beautiful boxing style and clean fighting but his resume reeks of mediocrity when put in perspective. He had every chance and reason to move up in weight and challenge himself against much better opposition just a few pounds up since he had the body frame to do so. Instead he decided to move up very late in his career and continued to fight unknown fighters. Guys like Saman, Alvarez, Ohashi, Sanchez, Vorapin are good wins but I wouldn't call them great fighters. I still get irked whenever people call Finito Lopez this "perfect, unbeatable fighter". He was far from being perfect and he was definitely not unbeatable. I see a good amount of great fighters around his weight class that would have beaten him convincingly. To me Finito reminds me of GGG in a way, where he decided to stay in one division for far too long and rarely tested himself. Although GGG did end up fighting fighters with a pulse such as Canelo and Jacobs.
I personally rank wins over Estrada, Cuadras, Yafai, Sosa, Viloria, Yaegashi much higher over the overmatched opposition Lopez has fought (besides Alvarez).
Lopez and Chocolatito rate closely together at 105, you can pick one or the other. Other than 105 Chocolatito far exceeds Lopez at light flyweight.
Not sure why you're so focused on Bert Sugar's. maybe you simply hated the guy, but the point was that there is plenty of pundits and fans that feel Lopez was the better and more accomplished fighter. I'm simply one of those. You're making some good points for Chocolatito but you're also being biased with your pick and choosing. For example you mention that Sorjaturang was "green" when Finito beat him, obviously in order to diminish that win. The same can be said about Chocolatitos first fight with Estrada. You also give Chocolatito the benefit of a doubt in his loses, and then assume that "Lopez chose not to challenge himself" without really knowing any of the circumstances, that is pure bias. We can go back and forth with the nit picking but ill just leave it at that. You've put up a good case for Choco but you're not going to convince me otherwise, and i'm sure the feeling is mutual. I'll recap: Chocolatitios 4 div run looks good until you look at each run individually, in which case, they look average. Chocolatito lost to his two best opponents. And was knocked out. Lopez made the ring's top 10 PFP list 8 times, Choco only 3. Choco was also a more flawed fighter than Ricardo Lopez was. It's a close race for two of he best little men in the sport but simply put Lopez edges this.
