A What If - Salvador Sanchez?

Good one Fergy. As usual your post is quite thought provoking. I envisage a series with Sanchez winning the first one and Chavez the return. Both close ones and going the distance. Which brings us to the decider. This is the $1000,000 question.

 

Sanchez was far too much for him at that point.

 

Such a tragedy that Salvador had that dreadful accident.

 

Salvador Sanchez was not your stereotypical Mexican Slugger. He had more of an American style to his boxing, lateral and head movement. He fired combinations off of his opponents misses, he had an iron jaw, a good counter right hand. He adjusted to his opponents style, he was cool, calm, and collected in the ring. Julio Caesar Chavez could box but could be outboxed into defeat, Meldrick Taylor almost did and Frankie The Surgeon Randall eventually did in 1994, ending the long undefeated winning streak. Chavez did hit harder than Sanchez, but Salvador would not stand in front of Chavez, taking his heavy handed punishment, he would have boxed Chavez the same way he defeated another heavy fisted fighter, Danny Little Red Lopez, twice, Feb 2 1980, TKO 13, and on June 21 1980, TKO 14. Lopez both times came to fight, Sanchez countered him to death while employing good lateral and head movement while using the right hand counter to perfection. I see a unanimous decision win for a 130 lb Salvador Sanchez, there would be no knockdowns in this fantastic fantasy bout.

 

Sanchez was one of my favorites, loved watching him. I think he wins.

 

Salvador Sanchez was 23 years old when he tragically died, I was also 23 years old at that tragic time.

 

Thanks Pal, a really good fantastic thread.

 

Both great fighters but I think Chavez's style was tailor made for Sanchez, it does remind me of Danny Little Red Lopez's, and we saw what Sanchez did to him both times.

 

I don’t know that the timelines work out exactly.

Chavez isn’t ready for Sanchez and isn’t on the world scene when Sal tragically died after the Azumah Nelson fight. If they did fight in that time frame, Sanchez probably comfortably outboxes him.

It’s a full two years later that JCC becomes a world champ at 130. By that time, Sanchez surely would have moved to lightweight (there was talk of him fighting Arguello at 135 at the time he died … Don King even claimed to have a contract with AA for this fight, saying AA was refusing to go through with it.

In short, Sal had bigger fight to fry: there are much bigger fights for him at 135 than facing a still basically unknown Chavez at 130.

But let’s say Sal did have a brief stopover at 130 that coincided with the time JCC arrived on the world scene. Julio is the bigger guy (he was mostly fighting at 135 and dropped down to win a title, while Sal was a feather moving up) and almost certainly stronger. We saw from Nelson that a savvy, strong, aggressive fighter could give Sal some problems.

It’s an interesting proposition, but I favor Sanchez’s experience over JCC’s strength and aggressiveness at 130 if they fight on a real-time schedule when it could have actually happened. Probably UD … don’t see him stopping the Lion of Culiacan.