ATG: Who Ranks Higher, Comparing Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya

Oscar has multiple excellent wins. Many, many great fighters in history have no true "defining win" whatever that means.

Still, Chavez was greater.

 

P4P Chavez is better but its closer than people think, Chavez himself has a weak resume

 

Oscar was very, very good. He gets sold a bit short these days. He was a beast at 135, huge,fast, skilled and powerful. He was still plenty good up to 147 as well.

Chavez was one of the best fighters I’ve seen up to 135 and still an elite fighter up to 140. P4P Chavez was better than Oscar imo but that’s no knock on De Lá Hoya whatsoever. Both were great fighters in my view with excellent wins and resumes.

 

Tough for me to say as I have had to evaluate prime Chavez in retrospect and my main introduction to him was the Whittaker and Taylor fights, where he didn't look great to me. My boxing fandom came of age during the peak popularity of De La Hoya, and he put a lot of people onto the sport in the USA, specifically California as well. I think when they fought, it was accurate even if Chavez was very shopworn.

I think Oscar has more noteworthy performances on a world stage. He also got came up short in big fights a lot. He looked pretty bad vs. Sturm in particular. I didn't expect him to beat Hopkins. Trinidad was a weird fight. Mosley 1 was a banger, no two ways about it. Vargas was a fun one. Mayorga was, too. A really fun fight while it lasted vs Hernandez, apparently Genaro fought with a broken nose. He beat up Arturo Gatti, for what it's worth as well.

Chavez has the biggest fight ever in terms of attendance vs Haugen. But many other fights I know of his, I don't rate as highly as Ike Quartey. I'd prefer a win vs. Ike to 2 over Mayweather. I like his win vs Lockridge but I thought Lockridge actually kind of beat him up and (I thought) arguably won when I watched it. Juan Laporte is a nice win, that guy was t o u g h. People forget that Chavez' loss to DLH was his second loss, first stoppage loss, and the first time where he looked completely lost in there. Camacho is a good name to have on there, too.

I don't know. In terms of legacy, I know a lot of Mexican and Mexican American boxing fans would call it sacrilege to even have it close, but to me, it's close. Oscar did so much and is still considered a resounding disappointment by a lot of fans these days. Ahhhh it's Chavez. It's pretty clearly Chavez when you consider legacy and fighting on a championship level for a longer time, and being more consistent at the top level. But De La Hoya fought tougher guys in bigger television events with more mixed results.

 

In my opinion he has a few defining wins, his destruction
of Mayweather, Camacho, and Rasario are as good
as MOST major wins in history...
Though the Taylor win was close, as you noted,
if it were a 15 rd fight, no controversy

 

By the same token if we take away Quartey, Whitaker, Sturm..

 

It’s been too long since I’ve seen these fights to remember how they went honestly. But wins over Trinidad and Mosley would be worth more then the losses would take I think. That is if they’re truly losses.