I watched a lot of boxing all through the 70s and 80s, and looking back, I have to say the toughest division was the featherweight division that Salvador Sanchez mowed down. When you look at the records of the guys he beat, it is quite impressive. Starting with his gaining of the WBC feather weight title.... Danny (Little Red) Lopez, 42 - 3 Ruben Castillo, 44-1 Danny Lopez, 42 - 4 Patrick Ford, 16-0 Jaun Laporte, 15-1 Roberto Castenon 42-1 Nicky Perez, 49-3 Wilfredo Gomez, 32-0 Pat Cowdell, 19-2 Rocky Garcia, 23-2 Azumah Nelson, 13-0
Ah man I came in hot ready to speak about tough divisions. I just realized this is a shout out thread to Sal.
Those are impressive on the face of them, but when Sal sadly passed Azumah and to a lesser degree Laporte were the only ones who stepped up in a big way. So some of those fancy records didn’t have as much substance to them. Lopez was a great champ, as was Gomez (albeit at 122), but Perez was really more of a protected gatekeeper/journeyman, Ford gave Sal a good go but was picked apart in fairly brutal fashion by Eusebio Pedroza and never made another peep. Castillo built that impressive record but went 23-10 the rest of his career (including some losses to dubious opposition) with maybe one decent win. Etc. I wish Sanchez had fought Pedroza. Truth is, while those two held the two belts at the time there wasn’t a way to say who was the top guy in the division since they never faced off. I’ll take the light heavyweight division of the late 1970s-early ‘80s as the deepest anywhere for a period of several consecutive years. You had: Matthew Saad Muhammad Michael Spinks Eddie Mustafa Muhammad Marvin Johnson Victor Galindez Dwight Muhammad Qawi James Scott Yaqui Lopez John Conteh Mike Rossman (a shooting star but at his peak was pretty formidable) All those guys were roaming the 175-pound ranks at the same time, along with contenders like Jerry Martin, Richie Kates, Bobby Cassidy, Mate Parlov, Marvin Camel and more. Throw their names in a hat and pick two out and you probably get a really good to great fight and very often a complete toss-up trying to pick a winner.
Yeah! f there ever was a fight that should have happened but didnt. I am pretty sure Pedroza beat most if not all of the fighters that Sanchez beat, but there was never even a whisper of a unification. Looking back, if I had to guess, most likely Pedroza avoided the fight, content to keep his lesser belt and make a good living.
Yes. That was actually the first one I considered. Interesting to note that Spinks beat most of the tough guys on the way up. After he won a title, the only fight of any significance was Eddie Mustapha Muhammed, I think that was a unification bout. IMO all of the rest of the guys Spinks fought as champion were nobodies. Perhaps that why I didnt pick it.
Yeah what a high level matchup. Not a chance Pedroza avoided him IMO. One could just as easily wildly guess/speculate that it was Sanchez avoiding Pedroza as he thought he may have been tough stylistically if we play that game. The truth is there was so much politics back then and it was hard to get WBC vs WBA unifications across the line. Bouts like SRL - Thomas Hearns (particularly) and Spinks - Qawi were much bigger money matches with enormous stylistic interest which made them easier to get across the line among other things. There were promotor wars too for example. King had one guy and Arum the other. So it just a wasn't big enough money match to circumvent both the WBC vs WBA war and Arum vs King. I'd call it a toss up and pick Pedroza by a close decision that would still be argued about in here to this day
