Well, since I did Emile Griffith a moment ago, I'm kind of obliged to do Jose Napoles now. There's an invisible chain that connects them, you know ? The same kind of chain that connects Duran and Leonard, Charles and Moore, Mayweather and Pacquiao etc. You get the point. Unlike Emile Griffith, who was almost always constantly fighting the very best , I was surprised to see just how much Napoles liked unranked fighters for quite a while. This one is dedicated to @greynotsoold, since Napoles is one of his favorites. About a year and a half into his career, after beating your average initial pro tune up fighters, he defeated two future top Lightweight contenders, those being Angel Robinson Garcia and Bunny Grant, both of whom would end up as divisional top 5's in 3 years time, and as top 3's not long after. After a year of fighting relatively unremarkable opposition, he would once again defeat Angel Robinson Garcia before putting his career in a year long hiatus, after which he proceeded to lose in a close fight against Tony Perez and the #3 rated Lightweight Alfredo Urbina. He would then stop future top 3 Welterweight contender Raul Soriano in 4, prior to avenging his loss to Alfredo Urbina with a first round stoppage win over him. He then proceeded to stop the #2 rated Lightweight Carlos Hernandez within 7. While he would still enjoy weaker competition, his overall level of opposition definitely took a step up after this when he moved up to Junior Welterweight, where he would defeat #10 rated Giordano Campari, former Champion and #3 rated Eddie Perkins and #2 rated Adolph Pruitt. After about 2 years's worth of unranked competition, he defeated fringe Welterweight contender Eddie Pace. And now, the amount of world class fighters that Napoles would defeat would go sky high. Former Junior Welterweight contender Lennox Beckles would get knocked out in 1, and then Napoles would stop the Champion Curtis Cokes in the 14th round to gain the Welterweight crown in one of the all time great performances of the sport, and thus would begin one of the all time greatest title runs in Welterweight history. Curtis Cokes would get beaten just as easily in the rematch, which would cease to continue after the 10th round. Former Welterweight and Middleweight Champion, #5 rated Middleweight and all time great Emile Griffith would barely squeeze a round or two against him. #2 rated Welterweight Ernie Lopez would get stopped in the 15th. A very unfortunate cut would strip him of his title against the #8 rated Welterweight Billy Backus, after which Napoles defeated former divisional #1 Manuel Gonzalez, and then reclaimed the Welterweight title by stopping the Champion Backus in 8. #10 rated Jean Josselin would fall in 5, #4 rated Hedgemon Lewis would provide a good test but would come up short, British fringe contender Ralph Charles would get knocked out in 7, #2 rated Adolph Pruitt would get stopped in 2, #5 rated Ernie Lopez was stopped in 7, #3 rated Roger Menetrey would lose every round and #2 rated Clyde Ray would be a tougher challenge than most but would by no means win against Napoles. He then moved up to Middleweight to try and dethrone the great Champion Carlos Monzon, but he would not be able to turn his ambition into reality, getting stopped in the 6th, and thus returned to Welterweight. In his rematch against the now #2 rated Hedgemon Lewis, he would stop him in the 9th this time, #9 rated Horacio Saldano also got knocked out in the 3rd. Then he won in contoversial fashion against top contender Armando Muniz, who had just defeat Hedgemon Lewis, where Napoles won the fight by TD despite being the one unable to continue the fight, leaving many fans of Muniz and other fellow Mexicans feeling as if this was the robbery of the century. A few months later, Napoles would procced to win just about every round against the now #3 rated Muniz, and would finally hang up the gloves after his stoppage loss to the #3 rated Welterweight John H Stracey. Despite facing many unranked men for most of his career, his Welterweight title reign was absolutely amazing, with 13 successful defenses and all against world class opposition, only a measly 2 of his opponents were not ranked in the top 3 at some point or another. Mad stuff. And some of those guys were Hall of Famers and legitimate all time greats like Curtis Cokes and Emile Griffith. Absolutely a top 5 all time great Welterweight. And some of his wins against lower division Champions like Eddie Perkins and Carlos fernandez, coupled with a dozen wins against ranked men in non title fights, truly cement him as one of the true greats.
I could never got into him and while he was a great boxer I always thought Ray Leonard was more impressive but alot of posters swear by Napoles.
One of the very best welterweights of all time. Just a notch or two below the likes of Leonard and Robinson.
Yes Stevie, he's my #3, behind those 2 only. He went 35-2 in fights contested at WW, his only defeats at the weight to Backus on cuts, avenged, and at 35 in his final fight to Stracey. He was 15-2 in world WW title fights, a reign that would have lasted over 6.5-years, if it wasn't for the 6-month break due to the Backus cuts defeat. In yet another brilliant OP, Ioakeim Tzortzakis has gone into excellent detail on the amount of ranked WWs he beat. It's the scale of the dominance in the Griffiths & Cokes wins that impress me so much. Yes, Griffiths was past his absolute peak, but he still had a win over Dick Tiger and a close(ish) fight with Carlos Monzon ahead of him, all the up at MW. Griffiths is my #6 all time WW. Curtis Cokes is a sadly, mostly forgotten, but yet excellent fighter. His 7-2 record in WW world title fights, with a series win over LMR, stacks up well historically, which is partly why I rank him #20 all time at WW. Napoles took him apart, twice, in what were borderline mismatches.