Does Julio Caesar Chavez make the Top 20 All-Time

Don't like your personal appreciate for a fighter taint your ability to view him onjectively.

 

You think he's that highly regarded that he could be considered overrated despite his elite ability? How highly do you believe he ranks among the greats. You've said different things in the past about Jofre if I recall, basically that you believed him to be superior to Arguello in a comparison you made.

 

Now that i think about maybe not nowadays that a lot more people have watched him fight, but when Jofre was getting his big push back in the early days of boxing websites and forums he was about as untouchable a fighter as it gets.CBZ was still relevant then and some of the opinions of the older guys there that had seen him fight or researched him was just outright fanboy garbage, here was an obscure enough fighter from the lower weights that could be mythologised to a ridiculous extent.Suggesting someone like Gomez or zarate could have troubled with him woudl have been heresy.

best fighter since the sixties, A bantamweight Ray robinson with a bigger punch, no flaws at all, no one remotely close to him at Bantam, would have destroyed Harada a few years earlier and so on..

you didn't get any of the reasoned discussion with him that other great fighters woudl have.It does seem to have levelled out now though.

I do think he's a bit better than Arguello and would probably pick him to beat Chavez P4P as well, but he's in that grey area as far as overall accomplishments go compared to them, where i'd be hesistant to put him in front of them overall just because of that.I mean those aren't 100 percent sure picks.

 

Chavez isn't in my top 20, but I think you could argue that he belongs ahead of guys like Eder Jofre, Joe Louis and Alexis Arguello, who consistently rank ahead of him.

 

Here is a hastily typed list from 1 to Chavez:

Post-Walker Law P4P Rankings
1.Sugar Ray Robinson
2.Harry Greb
3.Henry Armstrong
4.Ezzard Charles
5.Roberto Duran
6.Muhammad Ali
7.Mickey Walker
8.Willie Pep
9.Archie Moore
10.Benny Leonard
11.Barney Ross
12.Carlos Monzon
13.Ray Leonard
14.Pernell Whitaker
15.Gene Tunney
16.Emile Griffith
17.Charley Burley
18.Tony Canzoneri
19.Sandy Saddler
20.Roy Jones Jr
21.Joe Louis
22.Ike Williams
23.Kid Gavilan
24.Alexis Arguello
25.Eder Jofre
26.Carlos Ortiz
27.Julio Cesar Chavez

(have excluded fighters whose peaks or career majorities were pre-1920. This is just an experiment, as I am becoming more and more dubious that we should be including pre-Walker Law fighters in boxing p4p lists. Was it really the same sport back then?? It's a subject worth debating/considering I think)

 

Not sure of what you actually said, but I think I can make it out. Here's my answer (if I understand you): As a rule, I don't appreciate boxers first and judge their worth second. I appreciate boxers because of something about them that deserves appreciation.

When I explain why Julio Cesar Chavez is a top 20 all-time great boxer, the explanation, which is based on record and observation and comparison, sounds like appreciation because there is so much to appreciate.

Appreciation doesn't create the reality that Chavez effectively ended the career of a extraordinary boxer in Meldrick Taylor. Tragic for Taylor to be sure, but an event testifies to something significant about Chavez. To come from behind and score a last minute stoppage against a talent like that indicates something very special about Chavez.

Appreciation doesn't create the reality that Chavez battered into submission inside of 11 rounds one of the most talented and hard punching lightweights in history. I'm speaking of Edwin Rosario, who was at the absolute peak of his powers. Chavez walked through thunderous punches to beat down Rosario.

I could keep going. The list of remarkable events that comprise the man's record is truly rare in boxing. He is the greatest fighter to ever come from boxing-rich Mexico and the second best lightweight ever in my judgment, even with Armstrong. Only Duran I rank more highly than those two at 135 lbs. Chavez beat so many top fighters in such a convincing fashion in arguably the most competitive weight division that one has to find reasons not to include him in the top 20.

I recognize that there is some bias against the man (I have never understood it, but it's for sure real), but so far nobody has given me a compelling reason to locate a fighter who won his first 89 fights, no draws, no losses, almost 90 percent of them inside the distance, against a list of opponents that any fighter of any era would appreciate claiming as his own.

I think that one of the problems is that people look at his short tenure as lightweight champion and then his unsuccessful bids to win the welterweight championship and downgrade him for that. But one need not hold a world title for long (and Chavez never lost the lightweight title in the ring) when that man has beaten every credible lightweight of his day, whether it be under the weight or over the weight. Camacho, Rosario, Ramirez, Mayweather, Lockridge, LaPorte, Smith, Taylor, Haugen - the list goes on. I rank Ezzard Charles very highly, even though he never won the light heavyweight title and was heavyweight champion only briefly.

I stand behind my judgment.

 

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Henry Armstrong
3. Sam Langford
4. Harry Greb
5. Ezzard Charles
6. Roberto Duran
7. Willie Pep
8. Joe Louis
9. Muhammad Ali
10. Archie Moore
11. Joe Gans
12. Mickey Walker
13. Joe Walcott
14. Barney Ross
15. Benny Leonard
16. Sugar Ray Leonard
17. Bob Fitzsimmons
18. Sandy Saddler
19. Pernell Whitaker
20. Tony Canzoneri
21. Julio Cesar Chavez
22. Gene Tunney
23. Alexis Arguello
24. Eder Jofre
25. Carlos Monzon

21-25 are interchangable.

 

Jersey or Barbados?

 

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No he wasn't. I think when you get in the top 20 the blueprint for beating that level of fighter is very limited. There just aren't that many flaws. With Chavez, although a tremendous fighter, we saw the blueprint with Taylor and especially Whitaker. He's similar to Arguello in that there was a certain type of fighter (albeit a very high level one) who was going to give him trouble. When you start looking at the Robinson, Duran, Leonard, Monzon, Whitaker I don't think it's as easy to find these flaws.

 

I'm not saying disregard them, of course not, guys like Langford and Gans are GIANTS of boxing and always will be. But just like Tefilio Stevenson and Gem Mace are boxing greats that we don't include in our p4p lists, I'm currently pondering on whether the pre-1920 fighters should be either. I don't think they should be disregarded, but maybe they should be included in a separate listing? I mean, is it really viable to compare George Dixon and Floyd Mayweather Jr?

 

Jersey might not rank in my top 100.

 

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I would say Chavez should definitely make a top 20 list, he was one of the top 1-3 fighters of the last 20 yrs, he reached 87-0, was a 3 weight world champion & was very rarely run close in his prime yrs, 95% of his prime victories were clean cut & utterly decisive, he also was regarded as the p4p no1 for about 4 or 5 yrs by most in a competitive era (late 80s-early 90s)

If Chavez wasnt top 20, then Im incredibly curious as to how good & dominant you have to be to make this top 20 ****, I really am.

 

Great post :good

Ive always felt that Chavez got a raw deal here on ESB compared to a lot of the other greats, he is far greater than most posters on ESB will declare.

I have Chavez in my top 10.