Been thinking about fighters who regularly appeared on tv in the 90`s and Johnny`s name is etched in my mind.How does he rate on here?
Outstanding at 115 and 118lbs. He is one of the few that was talented enough to miss 4 years of his prime and win the title. He was still somewhat of a prospect when he was suspended for Drugs. Him and Ali. I guess Foreman too.
Johnny was very quick, he had a b beautiful left hook and he always finished with it. Decent power. Good chin.
He was fantastic. Great boxing skills to go along with ridiculous toughness and motor. Achieved what he did in spite of his demons.
Tapia before his lay off was like Walter McGowan but with less scarable skin and much quicker hands. He was very, very good and could be very entertaining. Definitely top five at 115.
Galaxy Sung Kil Moon Mark Johnson Tokuyama Martin Castillo Vic Darchinyan Donaire Sor Rungvisai Estrada And Inoue was better h2h. I really wouldn't say there's anything definite about having him in the top 5.
He would have beaten Vic and rather easily. Actually with the exception of Johnson I could see him besting all on that list.
No. Vic is badly underrated due to his ugly style, but he was an animal and has a huge resume at 115. Donaire would’ve beaten the absolute **** out of Tapia, as would’ve Inoue.
I just know that I’ve never seen anyone fight with more of their heart on their sleeve than Tapia. His passion and drive were visceral. You could almost reach out and touch his rage and intensity. His story was heartbreaking. RIP.
Galaxy and Moon, sure. Donaire and Too Sharp had no more than five fights at 115 between them. Not sure how you think they're greater there. Tapia was a clear level above Estrada and Rungvisai, and he'd have all the tools to beat them. Cuadras either nearly beat, or did beat the pair of them. Tokuyama was decent but has little outside of two robberies vs Penalosa. Inoue can be argued to be better head-to-head, but it's no sure thing. Even the old verison of Tapia who whitewashed Konadu would be by far and away Inoue's best opponent. Castillo? Darchinyan? Don't take the ****. Its interesting that you don't mention two of the actual greatest super-flyweights ever, Roman and Watanabe. It's almost like you either have an absurdly bias view towards more modern fighters, or don't actually know too much about the weight.
I started at 1989, which is the first Ring list. Tapia didn't actually do that much at 115. Beating Romero and Arthur Johnson isn't that great. No way was he a level above Sor and Estrada. Nor was he above Darchinyan. He could've competed with them, sure, but he never did anything to prove he was better.
So your entire basing is off Ring's rankings? Tapia took four years off, then came back and made like 15 title defences, as well as beating Romero. In a shallow division, that's very impressive. Given Rungvisai and Estrada's issues with Cuadras, it's hard to not envision Tapia building on that with a similar style based speed and workrate. The fact that Tapia was miles better than Cuadras doesn't bode well for them. Even still, neither have had enough fights at 115 to actually claim to be top five, so they have to rely on eye test. And in my eyes, they're not better, nor beating Tapia.
