Prime for prime,so I think Chang from Torres III and Gonzalez from the Vargas fight. One 15 rounder and two 12 rounder,who wins the trilogy?
Chang for me. I see this going similar to how I think a Yuh bout would've gone. People would expect Chang to stand in and trade, when in reality he would likely pick-n-choose his spots in that languid jazzy boxing style of his. If Roman ever has any success up close, Chang would tie him up with his octopus-like mauling and infighting. Combine this with the fact that Chang had very underrated defensive instincts and is one of the few who can actually match and even exceed Choco in workrate and combination punching... I just have to go with him imo. Not to get it twisted - this would be a hard, hard bout for Chang. Gonzalez was an absolute monster around the 108 region. But Chang is in the absolute highest tier of talent H2H imo. Best of three? Chang 2 - 1.
Two good takes so far,split between Chang's erratic octopus fighting vs Gonzalez's dominance and smoothness.
I think this sums up well where I would stand on how Chang would fare in any junior flyweight hypotheticals. I do not see how Chang at his best can be beat at 108, because he was so naturally talented and versatile as to be essentially style-proof. He could chase down the best of runners such as Zapata; he could dart in and out against murderous punchers such as Torres; and he could even out-jab and win at distance against elite boxer-punchers and jabbers such as Chitalada. And at his best, he not only beat them but absolutely wiped them. Chitalada I was not close until the headbutt. Chitalada couldn't even hit Chang with his vaunted jab, considered one of the best flyweight jabs of all-time, and Chang was landing his jabs at will. I don't think some of you understand how naturally gifted Chang was - especially if all you've seen are the way past prime, post-retirement (1st retirement) struggles against Chiquita, Chitalada (II), and Kittikasem. One anecdote: Do you know how he got matched with his promoter? Kim Sung-jun, the former world junior flyweight titlist, went down to Pusan, a port city and Chang's hometown, to train for his flyweight title match with Shoji Oguma. Chang, as a 17 year old amateur, beat the crap out of Kim, post to post. Kim's promoter obviously went, "who the f*@# is that kid?" Needless to say, Kim's promoter picked Chang up, turned him pro, and the rest is history. Let me repeat: Chang as a 17 year-old amateur was brutalizing a former junior flygweight titlist, a guy who would go on to have a split loss against Oguma in a flyweight title match in a few months. You'd need not a "generational," but a "once-in-a-lifetime," fighter to beat that Chang. I am skeptical that Gonzalez can be that guy. Now, as I've confessed in the past, I have not kept up with the contemporary boxing scene, because I have got disgusted by fighters fighting once a year and avoiding fighting their best opponents in prime. So I've watched zero live fight in the last 5 years, and very few fights that occurred in the last decade or so in tape. I mean, maybe I've watched two dozen fights that took place in the last decade? Mostly involving heavyweights and Inoue. So I am not going to predict who wins this fight, because I don't know enough about Gonzalez. It would be hypocritical of me to predict this fight with confidence, because I used to bash posters who'd predict, say, Lopez vs. Chang without ever even having seem Chang in his prime. I have seen a few of Gonzalez's late-career fights where he got beat, but that's an unfair way to judge him obviously - just as it'd be unfair to judge Chang by Chiquita, the second Chitalada, or the Kittikasem fight. Thus, in the interest of fairness, I am intrigued: What are Gonzalez's best fights from his prime years that I should watch?
What an absolutely fantastic post. These little scoops about Chang from someone who was really there are amazing. I agree about Chang being freakishly talented - I mean, it's undeniable - and I agree he wins this. For Gonzalez, his best performances are imo: Edgar Sosa - Absolute demolition job, on a guy who really nobody could do that too - including the more recent Julio Cesar Martinez who at his peak, was a destroyer. Brian Viloria - Viloria iirc was either the second best or third best guy below 115 in the world, and Gonzalez' performance against him showed the difference between an excellent fighter and an all-time great one. Akira Yaegashi - Yaegashi was as tough as they come and loved a war almost more than anyone, which really just made him the perfect punching bag for a guy like Gonzalez. Beautiful performance. Juan Francisco Estrada 1 - His best win imo, and a very fun fight with Gonzalez having to circumnavigate Estrada's atg jab. Katsunari Takayama - Similar to Yaegashi, Takayama is tough as nails and loves a tear up. Gonzalez used him as a canvas. Interestingly though, Takayama wasn't really your typical swarmer, he was almost like Manuel Medina in that he swarmed you as an outboxer. Francisco Rodriguez Jr - I feel like a broken record, but Rodriguez is another guy who was a monster swarmer who loved a tear up who just got mangled by a peak Gonzalez. Julio Cesar Martinez - This isn't peak Choco, and it's up at 115, but Gonzalez really shows the vast experience and skill he'd gained over a decade at the top. If you wanted to see some of his best fights though just for pure action, 115 is really where it's at. The Estrada trilogy, the first Rungvisai fight and Cuadras are really corner stones of the best 115 era ever imo.