From Mario Martinez in '84 to Kostya Tszyu in 2000...

He lost at 91 fight s and reigned on and off from 84 to 91. Took on most of his generation s contenders and champs. I'd say he's near enough the greatest fighter of his generation. You can't argue with that.

 

Sorry I'll correct that. He reigned on and off from 84 to 96!

 

You obviously didn't follow boxing very closely back then. Almost every man on that list has an excellent chance of beating fighters such as Ricky Hatton. And Hatton reigned as champion in this era for years.

 

LOL. I didn't say that most of the guys you mentioned were "no hopers"

I meant, and this was implied in my post, that he had a plethora of non-title fights while champion and, while I didn't mention it then, I will now - fought like 20 times a year when he was starting out - a lot of filler in that record.

I said he had quality.....but....

But, now that you mention it, a few of his defenses you listed were "no-hopers": Andy Holligan, Frankie Mitchell (who was a good 130 pounder, but had no business being in a 140 lb. title fight), Ahn, Camache (also no business being in a 140 lb title fight, way too small). And - Marty Jakubowski? That's Exhibit A of a "no hoper."

And he did lose to many of the guys you listed.

And, if Don King didn't steer him clear of Frankie Randall after May 1994, he probably wouldn't have been WBC champion and fought the likes of Parisi.

A guy like Whitaker had many fewer fights, but also had high quality and beat him (except in the eyes of the myopic WBC judges).

He was clearly milking it (with King and the WBC's blessing) after 1994.

So, yes 1984-1994 was an impressive time for Chavez.

1995-2000? Not really

So, you can't just say "He almost went 100-0 and he fought tough competition for x number of years, so he the best of his generation."

I know you weren't the one to say "best of his generation" but I am speaking to fergy, as well here.

You need more nuance than that to truly analyze the situation.

But, yes, he was a great fighter.

 

Allow me to give you some facts on Chavez/Taylor:

Taylor suffered a broken eye socket, broken ribs, badly busted up face, had a lot of blood pumped from his stomach, was ****ing blood for weeks and was in hospital for almost 2 weeks following the fight and you say Taylor Dominated the fight, doesn't seem that way to me, I hate Chavez haters.

 

Hopkins seems a pretty good answer to the thread. It was 22 years between his first fight with RJJ and his fight with Kovalev.

But, yes, Chavez also faced a lot of good fighters.

 

The basic definition of percentages has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not I have followed boxing closely at any point in time. Nor does it have anything to do with how many people you favour to beat Hatton.

Do you understand what a percentage is?

 

Watch the fight. Taylor took about ten rounds and outlanded Chavez nearly two to one. He just didn't take the punches as well as Chavez did. Compubox had it 457/1156 Taylor to 258/701 Chavez. It wasn't even close.

 

Whitaker wasn't quite in Chavez' class in the big picture but should be celebrated for fighting the great Julio to a draw.