Greater Fighter: Ruben Olivares or Jose Napoles?

Napoles for me. Two of my favorites of all-time. I re-watch their fights a lot.

 

Napoles I think. Not as explosive but a tougher nut to crack. He's more consistent as well.

 

Olivares ranks higher for me

 

Napoles was both greater and better IMO.

 

Napoles...and like the new saying goes, "and it isn't even close"....

 

This.

 

Both won world titles in dominant fashion against excellent champions and in the same year no less. Both were done by 1975 and liefstyle played a part (although age in Napoles's case was also a significant factor).

Napoles was definitely more consistent and dominant but maybe Olivares had the tougher opposition?

I'll go with Napoles.

 

Olivares definitely had tougher competition and top end wins; Napoles has nothing on his record to match the destruction of Rose or two wins over Castillo. Cokes although excellent wasn't quite on their level and Griff was drained to ****. Rubens other top wins all hold their own at the very least with those of Napoles, the demolition jobs on Rudkin, Sakurai, Burruni, Pimentel, Ramirez up at feather etc. Olivares definitely has the greater wins and was just as dominant at his peak but pissed away his prime, and the subsequent defeats to Herrera hurt him in a way that none of Napoles's losses do. His dominance lasted, albeit against lesser foes, where Olivares's faded.

Ruben has a strong claim though to be the greatest ever in his best division where Napoles never really got to establish himself at his best weights through no fault of his own and was still highly dominant at a higher weight where he was only small. Both are astounding achievements. It's a shame that Olivares wasn't more dedicated and that Napoles never got his crack at lightweight or light welter. It's far from a given that Napoles would have defeated Ortiz but he would've taken the likes of Locche, Laguna, Elorde, Mando Ramos, Teo Cruz etc. Can you imagine what that does to his all time standing? If he still managed most of that good run at welter (not a given having had to face consistently great opposition earlier in his career), you've probably got one of the great CVs in the sport's history. Top ten/fifteen sort of stuff.

Both look astounding on film. I slightly prefer Napoles as a h2h force at his best, he was probably the more complete and aesthetically pleasing fighter overall. To say it isn't close, however, is just daft and biased.

 

Napoles.

I think Olivares gets let off too easily for some of his defeats and less than impressive performances which occurred when he was still in his prime, or at least still pretty young. He looked absolutely unstoppable in wrecking Rose and Rudkin, but after that looked a very vulnerable and inconsistent championship performer for the most part. As with a lot of other exciting fighters, I think his crowd-pleasing, knockout style blinds some people to the flaws on his record and spares it the same scrutiny applied to other all-time greats.

I'd definitely have Napoles higher as a Welter than I'd have Olivares as a Bantam, put it that way. Olivares did add a couple of belts at a higher weight, which is something in his favour here, but his record as a Featherweight is pretty spotty (I'll give him a pass for Pedroza, mind you). But if we're taking work in other divisions into account then I'd say that, while he never received a title shot there, Napoles was almost certainly the best Light-Welter in the world between 1965 and 1968.

Napoles was the more consistent championship performer, the better all-round boxer and beat opposition at least on a par with Olivares' overall, in my opinion. Really can't see a case for Olivares here, but am open to hearing counter arguments.

 

Olivares is nailed in the top two/three bantams Chris and has a serious shout at being number one. I'd say he has a stronger shout at ranking higher there than Napoles does at welter tbh, although in fairness Napoles was above his best weight at an advanced age and has the insurmountable figure of Robinson impeding his divisional ranking. Its difficult imo to genuinely rank him higher than 3 or 4 with certainty when you have Gavilan, Leonard, Britton etc amongst others with a lesser shout. Armstrong etc.

 

I definitely wouldn't lose sleep over either name being shouted out. I've seen them rated both ways on some very reputable lists. Two great fighters.

 

Welterweight is a deeper all time division than Bantam, so Olivares being slightly higher on the bantam list than Napoles on the welterweight list means nothing.

Outside of Olivares being a P4P more explosive puncher, Napoles was better than Olivares at just about every other facet of boxing.

 

For me it's Napoles in both categories.

I think Olivares is a bit overrated, in terms of I don't think he's top 3 at bantamweight. He's definitely top 5 but for me the top 3 goes

Jofre, Harada, Al Brown and then Olivares. Not losing sleep over anything different.
I think Napoles is greater due to him moving up more and was more consistent whilst having a somewhat comparable résumé.

And I also think that Napoles is one of the smoothest boxers of all time. He was excellent at merging punches and headmovement on offence and defence