Best Cuban Welterweight???

Don't forget Isaac Logat, Benny 'Kid' Paret and Jose Stable. Amazing how Cuba was producing these kind of fighters at 147. Regardless, to answer your question, I feel Gavilan was the fastest, Rodriguez had the best jab and legs, but Napoles was the best overall.

 

Coming up around the time of Rodriguez and having the pleasure of seeing him on TV, I would have to say he was best overall, cos he could box and had some pop, not as hard as Napoles. He fought the roughest toughest MW's and beat them. Gavilan, and Napoles were great but having seen them all I would go with Louie. Whats interesting is that fighting the hardest punchers of the time and the best fighters at WW & MW, all their chins held up. Except at the end Louie getting KTFO by Benvenuti of all people, and Napoles stopped on his feet by one of the best MW's of all time Monzon. What's great is that you can now go on Youtube and see all in action. Compare those Cubans to todays Cuban, nite and day difference.

 

1. Napoles
2. Gavilan
3. Rodriquez

 

Watching Rodriguez is a think of beauty, never seen such graceful movement.

 

Napoles is a lock for top 10 of all time in terms of H2H. Gavilan is even better than his record suggests. Rodriguez was a brilliant operator - good on inside and outside - hard to land to the body because his upper arms were so long lol

 

I got Napoles at 1 also.
Rodriguez second but to be honest ive watched alot more of him than the Kid so could go either way for no. 2

 

Throw Curtis Cokes and Emile Griffith into Cuban Big 3 WW's as test cases, and it becomes even tougher to compare. Cokes & Griffith edged out LMRod, and Napoles beat both CC and EG.

 

Longhorn, when talking of some of those fights to compare, I will say something about the 4th Griffith - Rodriguez bout. And that is I cannot make a case for Griffith at all. I think Luis was robbed blind. I scored it 71-65 for Rodriguez on the 5 point must system employed. I believe he really outhustled Griffith all the way. I did not see the first 3 fights of their series so I cannot comment on those. But that 4th fight, robbery!

 

I believe I saw all the Rod vs Griffith fights. You are right that a case can be made for each fighter as the winner in all the fights. They were that evenly matched. As a note, Doug Lord, the manager of CCokes, told me that Gil Clancy wouldn't put his fighter E.Griffith in with Curtis Cokes due to styles. And Clancy was a friend of Lord's.