I've always wondered why they never pushed Zarate and Pintor to fight again given how close and competitive the fight was despite the decision being seen as controversial at the time. I know Zarate retired immediately out of disgust but it would have been interesting to have seen a rematch. Although many would agree that Zarate may have edged the fight and Pintor himself was very competitive throughout and was not an easy opponent for Zarate at all. The rematch would have been another competitive contest IMO. Had they chose to fight an immediate rematch who would you have favored? Would Zarate or Pintor be able to make the adjustments to win even more convincingly?
I'd pick the same fighter in the rematch who won the 1st fight,,,,Carlos Zarate, and maybe by stoppage. He was really irate that the 1st fight was stolen from him.
Recently gave it a rewatch and to be quite honest it wasn't such a huge robbery that it was made out to be. I had Zarate winning just based on the one knock down being the difference but I can see Pintor edging it as well. It was still a very close fight and Pintor clearly got better in the last half of the fight, hurting Zarate a few times despite getting knocked down early. A rematch should have definitely happened but sadly didn't. Perhaps we could have gotten another classic all-Mexican series with these two.
As I discussed in more detail in this thread here, I'm skeptical of whether Zarate was ever really mentally, if not physically the same post-Gomez, & both his (lackluster) performance in the Pintor fight & the immediate decision to retire reflect that IMO.