Fifteen Greatest Flyweight Punchers

01 – Jimmy Wilde
02 – Peter Kane
03 – Roman Gonzalez
04 – Pancho Villa
05 – Prudencio Cardona
06 - Venice Borkhorsor
07 – Tancy Lee
08 - Antonio Avelar
09 – Pascual Perez
10 – Percy Jones
11 - Juan Francisco Estrada
12 – Yuri Arbachakov
13 – Efren Torres
14 - Muangchai Kittikasem
15 - Sot Chitalada



As we average 15 heavyweight puncher threads a week, I thought we'd take a little look at the smallest division, and 15 of the very best hitters at 112lbs. I'm definitely not in love with this list, so who doesn't belong, who have I forgotten, who needs to be shuttled about, what is your thought?

 

Pacquiao out! Avelar in!

 

Very very similar - the only thing i'd object to on your list is Manny so high. There was no Manilla Ice yet, he was essentially a one-handed fighter boiling down and who was extremely raw even with his good hand. Seeing him above Perez and Jones hurts my eyes a bit.

 

It's true, the division doesn't really have a load of guys who dramatically distinguish themselves - i think the top two is set in stone, no arguments from anybody there, and after that it gets a bit rough.

Like everyone else he had a career - so when he was young and ultra-aggressive he was more merciless but less artful. There probably is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle.

 

Gonzalez basically only scored KOs at 112lbs. Even granite dudes like Rodriguez folded to him. He was also putting punches together like an absolute demon at this time in his career, and the third had as much as the first and working his way up to 7 or 8. But the KOs speak for themselves - it was extraordinary, really and if he'd got Arroyo, the only guy to survive him, he'd have a 100% KO at championship level.

George very reasonably said that he'd have Perez #1 composite - i'd have Perez #3 composite, behind Wilde and Gonzalez. I dont' think a flyweight puncher list without him on it is a serious one.

 

No, you're quite right - Roman Gonzalez was one of the greatest fighters ever at 112lbs at punching hard, is what I am saying.

Rodriguez certainly wasn't unknown, no. He was stopped standing up, but it's sort of the lo-fi version of Robinson stopping LaMotta standing - nobody else has ever done it so it is impressive. Gonzalez hit hard enough to stop almost everyone he ever fought at the poundage. I'm not sure what more people want from a puncher tbh.

 

Roman may be disguising "respectable" power by knocking out everyone at the weight bar one, but I certainly couldn't see it. To me he just looked like he was hurting guys with every punch while sending them on the run and scoring all kinds of knockouts behind. He had power that was impossible to resist, which was certainly barracked by his excellence, but it will take a far better analyst than me to determine the ratio of excellence to punching ability in this kind of company.

Suffice to say I'm very happy that Gonzalez was one of the hardest punchers in flyweight history, and proved it by stopping almost everyone he fought with consistently hard shots. Viloria stopped far fewer fighters, had a much lower KO% and couldn't get guys like Soto and Iribe out of there, despite being technically excellent himself - I can't take the idea that he hit harder than Gonzalez that seriously, not least because Gonzalez so brutally out-hit him.

 

I think there is a great deal between them - reflected by the 92% KO percentage Roman has going for him versus around 70% for Viloria, despite the fact that much of Roman's 112lb opposition was title opposition. Roman's KO% was as high as it could possibly be without being 100%. Basically, if he found you in a meaningful way, you were done.

Why do you think so? He'd lost one fight in the last five years (a split to Estrada), blown out three low-level guys in quick succession, so was active - it's true that he'd rather embarrassingly failed to KO Juan Carlos Herrera a year before but was that really any more embarrassing than having failed to KO Soto in 2010? I don't think it was - I don't think Viloria was primed, but I think "washed" is way overhoard - either way I find it impressive that Gonzalez was the quickest man ever to stop Viloria, one of only two men ever to turn the trick, and the first and last at the weight to do it. In fact, i thought it was an excellent punching performance.