Which fighters looked great in a weight class and you would have loved to see how their careers there panned out but they spent far too little time there to establish a proper legacy? Thinking of some examples to start things off: Roberto Duran looked good weighing in around 140 but he essentially skipped the weight class after unifying the lightweight title and went straight to welterweight. A fight with Antonio Cervantes was a possibility but never materialised because of leap-frogging the division. Floyd Mayweather bounced in and out of lightweight, only having 4 fights in total before moving up. After struggling with Jose Luis Castillo in his debut at the weight, he won the rematch and made two quick defenses and was gone. What might he have achieved if he’d stayed there longer?
Michael Spinks having a brief Cruiserweight run would have been nice after the Davis fight in 84. Fights with guys like De Leon, Ocasio, Camel and Ratliff in 85 before moving up to Heavyweight in 86. Maybe Holmes would have reached 49-0 before losing to Spinks and would have ended up being a slightly less bitter guy
In a similar vein to Floyd, Pacquiao only had 2 fights total at 135 and 140. He looked absolutely brilliant against Hatton and Diaz, too - I think he'd probably still be champ
Sugar Occasio beat Jimmy Young, Great fighter, unsung levels to this and he missed the gold rush of fighting in the mid 70s when lesser men were around.
Iirc, Pernell Whitaker only had 1 x title fight at LWW. He'd have been a real force there, he was never a fully fledged WW. I think Napoles could have made LWW throughout most of his WW reign, which is a scary thought.
Yeah, I think he could have hung out longer there - long enough to face Whitaker at least at their best respective weights. What a fight that would have been (not the same at all as their welterweight fight in 1993).
Adrien Broner really looked very well put-together during his stint at 135. Him dominating and stopping Antonio Demarco the way he did was impressive. Canelo looked extraordinary at middleweight. I really wish he had stayed at 160 for longer because he was a menace at the weight and mixed the best of his fluid combinations from his 154 days and the heavy-handed counter-punching he relied on so heavily at 168. Both Kell Brook and Donald Curry should have spent more time at 154 because of how much both men struggled to make 147. Loma at 130. Barney Ross should have stayed at 140 for longer instead of 147. He scored most of his big wins at 140 despite him spending more time in the division above. JMM had only 3 fights at 130 but could have built a very tidy legacy at the weight had he stayed longer imo.
Yep, good one re Whitaker, Greg. He could have stuck around and had a LWW unification with Chavez in 1992. Again, would have been better than the fight they had in 1993 at welter. Chavez was more focused at that point and clearly at a more natural weight for him.
