Jofre went on an unbeaten run of 50-5 finishing his career at finishing his career at 72-2-4 (50) How does that compared to Floyd retiring at 50-0? I feel Jofre was exposed by Harada when they fought losing twice to the Japanese fighter. Here`s what the ring magazine stated about Jofre when they ranked him 9th in a list of the best (P4P) in the 50 years leading up to 1997, Harada was ranked 27th in the same list. Quality of competition: 7 Why he`s there: Unbeaten in his first 50 fight; great bantamweight who took three years off and returned to win the featerweight title. What he could have done to improve his ranking: Reigned during the run of brilliant Mexican 118-pounders.
Jofre 50-0 was full of fluff and few champions where as Mayweather fought something like 30 champions or title fights in his 50
Yeah but in an era with less divisions and less “champions” it’s harder to stat stuff the way moderns can. Jofre’s era didn’t have a junior bantam or super bantam so that’s 10 extra belts plus flyweights didn’t have junior fly so there’s 5 extra belts and then of course the extra 4 belts that would be at bantam. You’ve got to understand the context. So with 24 extra spots for a “world champion” you don’t think he’d have more “champions” beaten? Or if you flip it around and only count undisputed champions then Floyd never became one nor did he ever beat one whereas Jofre beat two undisputed champions. I tend to think an accurate way of comparing eras is to consider certain titles the equivalent of “world titles” so Mexico’s bantamweight championship clearly being of more value than a modern day “title” which an Adrien Broner can win in four divisions. North American title, European title, Asian title etc; all very hard to win as well. Again context. It’s like saying Charley Burley wasn’t good enough to be a champion but Charles Martin, Carlos Maussa was and Broner won in four divisions.
He wasn’t really “exposed”. Many (including Harada and the Japanese press) felt Jofre won the first fight and the second was dead close. This is after a decade killing himself to get down to weight and after only fighting once (7 rounds) in two years in an era where fighters fought many more times. Would Mayweather ever go to a rivals back yard like Jofre did going to Harada’s? Did Mayweather ever fight anyone as good as Harada? Especially a peak Harada? The answer is no, probably not and no. If Mayweather has fought Castillo in Mexico, or if he wasn’t the promoters prize asset, he loses there and then. If he fights Maidana in Argentina he loses there too. Jofre gets credit because he often went to the opponents back yard, fought them more often than not in their primes and encountered all kinds of different and difficult styles. He never asked for a concession or catch-weight or any other funny business. He was also undisputed champion for a number of years and that can only usually be done by facing multiple different styles, fighting in different places and not always in ideal circumstances. Jofre’s achievement of coming out of a genuine retirement to go 25-0 winning the lineal featherweight title at 37 against a great champion and fighting regularly to 40 without losing and not having any link to PED or IV also is sort of unparalleled and creates distance between himself and many.
Yeah you’d think with that screen name he’d understand that in different eras not everyone can be “champion”.
OK fair enough, throw out world champions. To make it fair, how many ring ranked opponents did he fight before he hit 50-0? I've gone through boxrec's annual rankings and I counted 8 top 10 ring ranked battamweights and 1 top 10 rated flyweight. I might have made a mistake. And some of them he's had series with to be fair. In comparison how many ring ranked opponents has Mayweather faced? He won his first title in his 18th fight and most of his opponents since have been ring ranked. So I'm guessing Mayweather has faced 25+ ring ranked opponents. And you can talk about depth of a division, but Batamweight has traditionally been a more shallow division than lightweight or welterweight because less boxers weigh that little.
I have the exact figures somewhere but again context. There’s three divisions which didn’t exist around his so one ranked opponent is the equivalent of four in Mayweather’s era and with division hopping so easy the number grows. I know Jofre fought around 25 world top 10 ranked opponents at the time he fought them but that’s based on NBA(WBA) ranking. The confederations within South America weren’t as aligned with the Ring or American organizations as they are but the South American bantamweight scene was hot in the 1950s. I’ve done (heavy) research. Castro, Smecca, Miranda (especially Miranda), Pereyra, Caceres and others are better than a lot of modern day “ranked” fighters and a lot of those early records on boxrec are incomplete. I know because I’ve added results, dates, weights for them. Of course some of the reported records could be (and in some cases were) embellished and rounded up (for example Caceres was reported 33 wins 0 losses 3 draws but I found a DQ loss). Its very difficult to compare era’s but I sort of go with the one title then I x it by 5 (today has 5 belts per division) and then if there’s extra weight classes around (as there was 1 less below and above 118) then I x that too so 1 champion in 1960 = 15 today. Like I say I also count the Mexican, European, Asian, North American titles and again x by how many extra divisions so 1 European bantamweight champion = 3 trinkets in today’s game. British Lonsdale champions too. Those belts mean more than a single belt today unless it’s undisputed or lineal, unified and by beating the previous #1. That’s how I handle to proliferation of titles and compare eras.
