Could Azumah Nelson ever have beaten Whitaker or Sanchez?

I can't see how Azumah gets one win tbh. If they were born to compete at the same natural weight mayyyyybe but even then Whitaker has some serious style advantage imo.

 

Certainly one of the best ever.

But I rate his chances of success very low in these match ups.

 

Sanchez would not take him lightly in the rematch. Sanchez would get him out sooner. Too busy for Nelson.

 

A seasoned version of Nelson would beat Sanchez.

 

Azumah would have a better chance of beating Salvador than Pernell, who takes him 10/10. I also feel that Pedroza has a 50/50 chance of winning against Azumah.

 

No.

He was very good but Sanchez and Whitaker were a class above.

He looked very good beating a fading Gomez. His other challengers at 126 lbs. were underwhelming. At 130, he barely got by Mario Martinez and a faded LaPorte.

 

I think Sanchez, while a terrific fighter has become a small bit over rated .. he was amazing against Lopez and Gomez but had a few defenses between where he was not so brilliant ... a novice , last minute Nelson gave him a challenging fight . I can imagine a prime Nelson giving him a terrific fight .. Whitaker was bigger and simply in the rarest of classes .. I'm not sure Whitaker lost more than a few rounds in his whole title reign at 135 .. he was exceptional.

 

Sanchez is definitely overrated in this discussion.
Nelson was almost an absolute novice in the fight with Sanchez, and there's no question in my mind that Nelson improved by a significant degree over the next few years. It's not like we're talking about a fighter who lacked dedication or failed to live up to the potential he showed here. He went forward and up, became more seasoned, became a great fighter.

And Sanchez was the prime version in the fight.

I would favour a 1985 version of Nelson to beat a prime Sanchez on points.

 

Nelson became much stronger, had more power than Sanchez and terrific stamina. It's a pickem fight. He fought and beat better fighters than Sanchez did.

 

Great topic. I feel honored to speak on this. First of all, all 3 were great great fighters. I feel that Nelson's great career has more than honored the memory of Sanchez and that the late Sanchez would be smiling in boxing heaven when he looked at Nelson's subsequent career. If the inexperienced version of Nelson gave him hell I suspect the 1984 version of Nelson would have won. As for Pernell Whittaker I would pick the 1984 version of Nelson to win as well. Nelson did everything well and had explosive power.

 

What opponents would you put above peak Gomez?

 

Maybe no one better but Gomez was the smaller man moving up against Sanchez .. putting that aside , a terrific win no doubt and beating an older and highly flawed Lopez ( again very impressive ) Sanchez had not many signature wins .. close fights too .. now I do say he died very young and may have gone on to dominate for ten years so it's a tough call .. I just put them in the same class of terrific fighters ..

 

Yes, if Sanchez had lived he MIGHT HAVE carried on winning, and even improved more.
But he was already a well seasoned fighter with plenty of title fight experience, unlike Nelson who was ridiculously inexperienced in the pro ranks. So his hypothetical improvement is unlikely to come close to what Nelson's acually was.

If we take the real life prime version of Sanchez and match him with a more experienced version of Nelson, I can only see Nelson being favoured here. Despite his loss to Sanchez he showed enough to make him a favourite given the equal degree of confidence and experience that came in the years following.
I thought it was almost an even fight for the majority of the 14 completed rounds.

I feel perhaps Sanchez is a bit more glamorous and a bit more favouritized on this forum than Nelson is.
Because logically, at the very least Nelson has to be viewed as 50-50 proposition against Sanchez in a PRIME v. PRIME scenario.

 

He died at 23 .. that is very young, even for a lighter weight fighter .. it is an unknown how great he might have become but it is clear he was already a great fighter and a seasoned fighter with over forty bouts and nine successful title defenses .. no doubt Azumah was a novice when they fought but Sanchez may have been improving too ..