Eder Jofre: Bantamweight/P4P Ranking

Jofre is very high in the list of Bantamweights. I think legitimately it is between himself, Ruben Olivares, Carlos Zarate, Panama Al Brown and Manuel Ortiz.

I pick Jofre as my number one, though. I think out of all the guys he has the most balanced resume with a good mix of longevity, solid wins and depth. He also looks very good on film which is always a good factor.

Jofre had nine Bantamweight title defences, starting from him winning the NBA through to him unifying and then through to him losing the title to Harada. Over the five year stretch he was champion he made nine defences as I said, that is good longevity in my eyes. Among the defences is his unification of the titles, I rate a fighter unifying the titles very highly, as it showed he went to the lengths of proving he was the main man in the era.

Also among who he defeated at Bantamweight was top names such as Jose Medal - who was a dangerous contender of the day and looks good on film and was a huge puncher, Johnny Caldwell - a very talented Irish man who was NBA Champion and a contender for a good few years, Bernardo Carraballo - another top contender for a good few years and Katsuoshi Aoki - another top contender who was top of the Oriental Bantams.

I think this is a good mix of wins and most importantly a good mix of styles upon which Jofre proved himself.

On the film of what we have, Jofre looks like a very capable boxer-puncher and he really dismantles Medal who was a fine fighter.

Compare this to the other guys, I think Olivares has some better names but lacks the longevity and consistency. Zarate is fairly even but I think Jofre edges it on depth. Ortiz has the edge in longevity and length of reign but does not have as good names on the record. Brown is probably one who could be argued over him, I just think Brown was a bit inconsistent, but I am not an expert on Brown.

That is why he is my number 1 Bantam.

 

Unfortunately there's not much footage of Jofre's opponents to really gauge with a good deal of accuracy as to how good he must have been to overcome them.

Wish we could see the likes of Ernesto Miranda, Jose Smecca, Piero Rollo, Herman Marques, Johnny Jamito, Manny Elias, Johnny Caldwell etc.

In ranking him, I think a lot depends on how generous you want to be in dealing with his resume.

 

Addie, he doe shave that air of a great fighter. I think it his delivery of shots.

 

There is footage of Elias

 

And Caldwell on youtube

 

Caldwell actually looks fairly good on film vs Rudkin IMO. You definitly seen Caldwell was world class. But generally I agree it is hard to rank his opponents and rate his resume on depth.

I'm getting a sneaky feeling though that Zarate might actually have a deeper resume than Jofre, and in that case Zarate would be my number 1 easily.

 

Greatest Bantamweight
Top 15 p4p of all time

 

I'll haVe to get back on the point of answering the two questions, but i was just reading the posts and in regards to what i thought made him look special, it's ironic what comes to my mind, i always think of the first Harada fight, one which he lost of course, and when Harada was all over him and he came back to land some of the best combos i've seen, long raking shots from all angles blitzing Harada. Strange but i always think of that when i'm pondering how good a fighter he was. He lost, but he just looked amazing there to me.

 

That fight with Harada, anyone who watches it and is not impressed by either is either mad, blind or a plain ******.

One of the highest calibre fights ever fought.

 

Brilliant, brilliant fighter IMO - even with the limited footage we have of him. He first gained my full attention when I stumbled across Nat Fleischer's supposed opinion of him, impressed as I was when hearing that a grumpy old **** like Fleischer, who'd seen so many of the great old timers, believed him to be the best p4p fighter of the day and the best of the bantamweight champions to date. Reading the thoughts of Pep and Barney Ross didn't harm his standing in my eyes either.

 

Seconded here. Those two wins by Harada are up there with the likes of Duran-Leonard I in terms of significance.

 

Most important wins at Bantam ever IMO.