Arturo Godoy vs Oscar Bonavena

yes i haveta agree on that

 

Two very tough guys. But I would favor Bonavena

 

You're always trashing old time heavies. I think you have a phobia of pre 1965 heavies

 

Lol thats why I think Louis is the most technically proficient HW ever... No, Im not always trashing pre 1965 HWs I just think Godoy was terrible to watch and ruined fights with his junk style of practically crawling around the ring before jumping into clinches. He makes guys like Ruiz and Maxim look like Mike Tyson.

 

I dont see Godoys record as particularly impressive frankly but we werent talking about his rating we were talking about the merits of the rating of guys like Lovell that he fought and which were being used to inflate his bonafides.

 

Given Godoy's performance against American fighters, such as Louis and Galento, the obvious conclusion would be that Fleischers ranking of them was more or less right.

 

Well, the entire NBA ratings are now available at boxrec and this whole criticism of The Ring ratings and Nat Fleischer is simply not valid. The NBA rated Godoy, Lovell, and Barlund just as highly.

Godoy first appears in the NBA quarterly ratings on 12-20-1936 at #7. He is ranked all through 1937. He had victories over Loughran, Firpo, and Galento twice. Galento was the #3 contender in the NBA ratings at the end of 1937, so it is not surprising that Godoy was rated. He fell out of the NBA ratings in 1938, but returns in the top twenty in late 1939. After the first Louis fight, his ratings were:
3/20/1940--#1
6/23/1940--#3
9/11/1940--#2
12/24/1940--#3
3/24/1941--#5
9/9/1941--#7
After that he would drop from the ratings due to losses to Roscoe Toles, but would return off and on throughout the 1940's until his last rating on 7/9/1948 at #9.

as for Alberto Lovell, he appeared in the NBA ratings in 1937:
7/23/1937--#4
9/14/1937--#4
12/19/1937--#5
Lovell drops out after losing to Barlund, but returns
9/13/1938--#6
and would bounce back in 1941 to get a #6 rating before dropping out after losses to Roscoe Toles.

Why was Lovell rated in 1937? He was the 1932 Olympic gold medal winner, and after losing his first fight, went on a long winning streak which included in 1937 wins over Andre Lenglet, Maxie Rosenbloom, Hank Hankinson, Red Burman, and Eddie Blunt. He bounced back into the ratings in 1938 and 1941 after wins over Godoy.

As for Gunnar Barlund, he defeated Lovell on 12/29/1937 and rose to the #2 contender position on 9/13/1938, on the basis of the win over Lovell and a KO of Buddy Baer.

So Godoy was rated as high as #1 contender by the NBA. Barlund as high as #2 contender. Lovell as high as #4 contender. I see no good reason to single out Fleischer for criticism as these high ratings were the consensus of those doing ratings. And I at least would not try to substitute my judgment of who should have been rated where over that of those actually on the ground at the time.

 

I didnt criticise Godoys rating, I criticized his style. You two are conflating two different discussions to create a strawman argument. Furthermore there is no disputing that Fleischer rated and wrote about foreign fighters undeservingly in order to boost sales in the areas they were popular, Nat Loubet, his son in law and successor at Ring told me that himself. Furthermore, lazy people on this forum constantly refer to the Ring Annual Ratings as their go to for legitimacy of a certain challenger or his opponents. For the reason stated above, the fact that the Annual Rankings were not indicative of where any fighter was ranked when a particular fight was fought, the fact that in later years Fleischer refused to acknowledge jr weight divisions which threw his ratings wildly out of whack, and the simple fact that his ratings were unofficial and had zero bearing on who got or deserved title shots I reject any argument supported by those ratings. We can sit here and argue the merits of this fighter or that being rated by the NBA or the Ring but that isnt the argument I was making no matter how hard Jason and Janitor try to change the subject.

 

I stand behind saying the criticism of Nat Fleischer's ratings is not relevant concerning Arturo Godoy, Alberto Lovell, and Gunnar Barlund, as they were rated just as highly in 1937 and 1938 by the NBA.

I wasn't in this debate. It started with Janitor using The Ring annual ratings in evaluating Godoy's resume.

That got this response from klompton2 concerning The Ring ratings:

"These ratings are basically meaningless, especially in regards to foreign fighters. Lovell for instance had fought just twice in fights that Fleischer could have seen when he was rated as high as #4 in the annual ratings in 1937 and would lose his next fight to Gunnar Barlund which really makes Fleischer's ratings suspect."

I didn't see much point in disputing your view of The Ring ratings, so I used the NBA ratings, which I like better, to point out that Lovell was rated #4 in those ratings also, and Barlund was rated #2 in 1938 in the NBA ratings.

As for seeing fights in an era before TV and with few films, I think any rater would have to rely on correspondents or the wire services, whether it be The Ring or the NBA.

The NBA ratings back up Janitor's argument.

I would advise Janitor to use the NBA ratings over at boxrec and so avoid these pointless detours into a Nat Fleischer obsession. Looking at the NBA ratings, I think foreign heavyweights were often rated higher--including Olle Tandberg, Bruce Woodc-ck, Hein Ten Hoff, and Franco Cavicchi.

 

As for the original question, this is a really interesting match. I think a true toss-up. Two strong, durable men who held their own with the best of their eras and seem to have always hung tough.

Looking through the NBA ratings, the two have about equally impressive lists of scalps;

Bonavena--George Chuvalo, Gregorio Peralta, Larry Middleton, Blue Lewis, Zora Folley, Leotis Martin, Karl Mildenberger, Billy Daniels, Amos Johnson, Manuel Ramos

Godoy--Tommy Loughran, Luis Angel Firpo, Tony Galento, Alberto Lovell, Gus Dorazio, Tony Musto, Roscoe Toles, Buddy Walker, Buddy Knox, Johnny Haynes, Phil Muscato

If there is an edge in resume, I think it goes to Bonavena because he really should have gotten the decision in the first Frazier fight.

For this one my money would certainly stay in my pocket, but if I had to pick, I go with Bonavena.