Better fighter: Roberto Duran (135) or Wilfredo Gomez (122)

Exactly. That's what I meant. His reflexes in the Nelson fight were a shell of what they once were.

 

That could be said for a lot of fighters though.

What happens to guys like Antonio Cervantes, Aaron Pryor or Kostya Tszyu before junior welterweight? They were too big for 135, yet too small to be welterweights.

What happens to Mike McCallum if there's no junior middleweight division? He was never as good at middleweight.

Just appreciate Gomez's greatness for what it was.

 

I think that I do? I even mentioned other guys many of my favorites who were great in one division but good not great in larger ones. But in contrasting it to Duran’s multi weight class jumps, and Gomez at 1 even if you consider him a 3 division champ? He beat Laporte and got a generous decision against Lockridge. I think he would be a good FW in a few eras but not a great like he was at 122.

 

Gomez was just 16 when he competed at the olympics for the first time, he was 18 when he won the world amateur championship, Alcides Sagarra, trainer of the Cuban team said that Gomez was just a kid who was walking trough everyone when he was around 16, Sagarra said that Gomez was one of the favorites to win despite everyone thinking that he was too young. He ended up beating everyone by KO including the Cuban.

 

Duran

 

Cervantes, Tszyu, McCallum were all huge at their junior weight classes. Cervantes and Tszyu would've been solid sized welters had they competed there and McCallum was a solid middleweight and still a great fighter there imo.

Guys like Napoles, De Jesus, Canto, Harada, Lane, Sugar Ramos, Fourie, Tiger, Griffith, Benvenuti etc coped either with being huge at one weight class or relatively small in a higher one.

Gomez was never a big featherweight and could probably have made bantam earlier in his super-bantam days at least for a while even if it was a strain in comparison and required greater discipline.

 

Also, at least half of Gomez's trouble at 126 came from him devolving as an overall fighter and neglecting his full skillset in favour of power-punching. Has he moved up up to feather a couple or three years earlier, I reckon you might have seen a different fighter there than the one we did if his full skillset was still in tact and he wasn't drunk on his own overrated power. He'd have been forced to use his movement, punch picking and blended approach from an earlier age before the bad habits set in and when it became apparent that he wasn't going to blow opponents away through sheer power at the weight.

Additionally, I get a feeling that the Sanchez fight took a lot out of him and he never fully recovered post-event. The Pintor fight took even more out of him.

 

We'll never know if it would have made any difference, but it seems he underestimated Sanchez.

Remember, Gomez was the pretty clear favorite over Sanchez, as nobody knew just how good Sal was.

Gomez came out with a take-no-prisoners mentality and wanted to trade with Sanchez, when he should have been using his legs and trying to box Sal.

He was a more talented long range technician than Sanchez, but in trying to trade with him, Sal was just too strong and durable.

 

Duran, by some distance . Much better defensively, as he was able to fight like a maniac inside and still manage to slip most punches, and roll with the rest. At range, you could hit Gomez.

 

Duran. Proved himself against tougher competition than Gomez. Not Gomez's fault...he just didn't have as good a level of competition to face.

 

Duran overall, Gomez PfP hardest puncher ever.

 

Gomez isn't even close to the hardest P4P puncher ever and that's not to take anything away from him.

 

Yeah, really good point. It works both ways - guys who established themselves in the original 8 before the preponderance of junior weight classes were not always a natural fit and could be small for that weight too. Jose Napoles might have been the best junior welterweight we never saw fight for a world title there.

 

Yeah, it's hard not to imagine Gomez doing a lot better against Sal if he'd used his great feet and punch-slipping and picking ability rather than trying to stand and trade from the off. Sanchez always had more difficulty with boxer types and Gomez was a sublime boxer when he chose to be. Like you say, he took Sal lightly and was the pre-fight favourite which probably fed even more into his ego and self-delusion.

It wouldn't have been as bad if Sanchez hadn't hurt him so badly so early in the fight. He had to try like a bear to overcome it and get back into the contest and actually did quite well getting a partial foothold in doing so, but he never fully recuperated from the first round and Sanchez was superb in never taking his foot off Gomez's throat.

 

Another thing to consider - this was the biggest fight in the history of the PR vs Mexico rivalry (still is to this day). I'm sure that contributed to Gomez's approach as he probably wasnt trying to go back to Puerto Rico, where he was considered a God, and his fans asking him why he played it safe and "boxed".

I'm sure that had a lot to do with his ill-fated decision to go to war with Sal.