Greater fighter: Ismael Laguna or Eusebio Pedroza

I'd go with Pedroza.

 

Pedroza IMO

 

Pedroza for me.

 

This is one of those questions where you wish there was a "all of the above" option

 

Pedroza …but I’m extremely biased ….i love his smooth style

 

Pedroza could fight at any range …could throw bolo punches …and if you consider fighting dirty a skill set…he was great at that too

 

On the surface of it, you'd think that the fighter who defended his splinter title 19 times ought to rank higher than the fighter who only made one successful defence of the lineal title, but Laguna was the greater of the two imo.

Outside of having the better top end wins, he fought in a much tougher shark tank of an era from bantam to lightweight where a lot of good, tough, stalwart ranked fighters from the Americas had to repeatedly face each other without being able to wangle title shots or cherry pick fights. More tried and seasoned against a wider array of continental/world level fighters than Pedroza imo and just as much of an anytime anyplace nomad.

His body of work below lightweight is underrated and under-examined but not helped by lack of footage unfortunately. He was beating ranked world title challengers like Eloy Sanchez and peripheral contenders like Nelson Estrada at bantam before outgrowing the limit and was the number one contender when he moved up. Bested the likes of Don Johnson, Rafiu King, Antonio Herrera, Eduardo Guerrero, Fili Nava (who he was the only man to stop), Juan Ramirez etc and on another day might have been given the nod against Saldivar. He'd have beaten Sugar Ramos at that point imo.

That fight was razor close and highlights another area where he had a tougher shake of the dice than Pedr oza - close, controversial decisions going against him. Saldivar, Elorde, Locche (who he really beat), the first Buchanan fight and so forth. Whereas Pedroza got the benefit of the doubt against Lockridge, Laporte, Taylor etc.

Outside of Ortiz, Ramos and Ishimatsu, he beat a stack of other very respectable names around 130/135. Champions like Carlos Hernandez and Carmona as well as the likes of Derado, Espinoza, Narvaez, Urbina, Hayles, Soriano, Nascimento, Rivas, Guanin etc. Very little genuine padding on his CV.

I rate Pedroza highly for what it's worth. Great fighter with excellent longevity. Smoother to watch than Laguna with a cleaner hook, bolo punch and practical use of reach/height. Laguna could be herky jerky in comparison and cuffed his left hook sometimes but was faster and more unpredictable with sharper defensive reflexes and slightly more cutting power in his straight punches while being Pedrozas equal in terms of digging deep and baring his teeth when necessary. Both with a lovely jab, footwork and upper body movement.

Laguna was very unlucky to peak around the same time as Saldivar, Elorde and Ortiz (and come away with a losing record) whereas timing and horrible circumstances stopped Pedroza from facing Sanchez and Nelson.

 

Tin made an extremely compelling case for Laguna making this close, but I'd still edge Pedroza for being greater.

However, I would say that Laguna on his A-game was the better of the two.

 

Pedroza, and he fought on the road.