Too many HW threads these days, let's show some appreciation for the little guys for once. So, who are the top 5 best H2H flyweights of all time? For me, I'd say something along the lines of: 1. Roman Chocolatito Gonzalez 2. Yuri Arbachakov 3. Fighting Harada 4. Miguel Canto 5. Benny Lynch
I'm not the most knowledgable on Flyweights but I'd put Mark Johnson up there. Apart from an early 4 round loss in his 2nd pro fight I believe Johnson went undefeated as champion at Flyweight. He didn't have the best opposition and he was avoided by certain big names, but i don't think theres many Flyweights with a more pleasing style that look great in regards to the eye test than Johnson.
I did consider Johnson. He certainly had the attributes to be ranked accordingly with his incredible speed and power for the weight. Something tells me he falls shy of being the elite of the elite though and I can't quite pin down why. His leaky defence and less than iron-clad chin might play a part in my estimation of him. I can see the argument to be made for him though and I'll probably watch some more of him to enlighten myself.
Agree with pretty much all the fighters mentioned (Chocolatito, Miguel Canto, Mark Johnson, Yuri Arbachakov, Fighting Harada, Benny Lynch) Pascual Pérez should also be mentioned as well. Juan Francisco Estrada, Masao Ohba, Santos Laciar, Nonito Donaire, Hiroyuki Ebihara and Horacio Accavallo aren’t too far off when it comes to great H2H flyweights.
Exciting guy, Johnson. You’ve inspired me to watch a few of his old fights as I haven’t thought of him in a long time.
Too Sharp in his prime was a very gifted, well rounded fighter with both an exciting and technical style where you can appreciate him slugging away or outboxing his opponents silly. He was sort of like a mixture of Pernell Whitaker and Roy Jones Jr in some ways. The problem with him though is that we can’t fully gauge his overall ability since he wasn’t able to fight the very best fighters during his prime. It would have been nice to have seen him fight guys like Finito, Abachakov, Tapia, or Romero while he was still at around Flyweight or Super Flyweight.
I'm a huge fan of Harada but I'm slightly skeptical of him being the third best flyweight h2h. Flyweight Harada isn't as good as Bantamweight Harada imo but I'm not very well versed on flyweights in general, I know a little bit but not a lot. I imagine if we had more than two Wolgast fights on film that he would be on more top 5 h2h lists. I would also consider Wonjongkam, Oba, and Chionoi contenders for top 5 h2h too.
I’m a huge admirer of López’s but certainly it needs to be said, he needed a Johnson on his résumé just as much as vice versa.
You can add Carbajal and Chiquita as well. It would have helped Lopez’s resume had he fought any of them. Yuri Arbachakov would have matched well with Johnson and Lopez as well.