How good was Salvador Sanchez ?

A couple things I think are blown way out of proportion with him:

1. This whole "Oh, what could have been" thing. The guy had 45 fights and nine title defenses already. Yes, he was 23, but we should all know boxing is not about how many birthdays you've celebrated. It has to do with the mileage on those tires of yours, as the body only has so many extended efforts in it. He'd put himself through the rigors of training (and his conditioning is rightly the stuff of legend) and really hard efforts that went into the championship rounds numerous times. You can only do so much of that at THAT level before you start to lose an edge. After all, he turned pro at 15. How many years could one realistically expect from him? I honestly believe people write the "he could have been great had he lived" line because they see it so often here and simply think they're supposed to say that so they sound knowledgeable.

2. The idea that he played down to lesser opposition is incorrect, I think. Certain styles bothered him, like the cagey Cowdell and Patrick Ford. Those two were not great fighters but they were in shape, they came to fight, and they played off Sanchez's counterpunching style by not coming forward very much themselves. Couple that with Sanchez's relative lack of true power (a relative nonentity in Rocky Garcia went the distance with him, though hardly won a minute of any round) and we have a lot of championship fights that are going the distance. If you were pretty good and could jab, flurry, and just stay with him for a few rounds, you were gonna look like a hero in retrospect, even if you lost.

That said, if you were an aggressive fighter that liked to trade punches, you had no chance against him whatsoever. He would eat you for breakfast. ATG chin, superb, fluid boxing, inexhaustible stamina, and a keen ring IQ meant he was going to be a huge handful for anyone in the division's history.

 

I agree his one weakness was his lack of finishing power; he let Azumah back in the fight after decking him, and it nearly cost him in the later rds when Azumah rocked him back badly.

Someone like Chavez would have finished Azumah there and then once he got him going.

 

Yep!!!

 

People often talk about Sanchez/Arguello but I don't recall it ever being posed as a match-up that was ever likely to really happen. Arguello was careering through the divisions and was on the verge of LWW, while Sanchez had remained at FW.

I would have liked to have seen Sanchez in with Pedroza - to unify the division. It could have happened. There seemed to be both the time and opportunity but it never came off. Not sure why.

 

A lot of people say that he tended to fight to his opponent's level (the Gomez fight notwithstanding, but that was personal). I'm not sure I'd say that, exactly, but he was very calm and composed in the ring, and sometimes too calm. He liked to win fights in the championship rounds, because his stamina was incredible. That's always a risky game to play if it ends up going to a decision. As far as I can remember, besides his single loss when he was an unknown, only the Pat Cowdell fight could really have gone another way, and any fighter can have an off night.

The simple fact remains that his resume puts him in the top 5 all-time featherweights. And he died at 23. That alone is enough to define him. So in answer to your question, "how good was he?", the answer is very, very good. Smart, confident, composed, great to watch, truly elite chin (smiling through bombs from Gomez and Danny Lopez must have been so demoralising for those guys, who had bulldozed their way through most of their fights), incredibly fit and astonishingly accomplished for his age.

 

He and Pedroza pretty much did, between them.

Unfortunately, they never had the chance to fight one another, because it would have been an intriguing match-up between two superb ring generals who both liked to accelerate their attacks as the rounds went on. Would have been fun to watch a unification match between the two.

 

Would have been a top ten Pound per pound.

At his age, to have already beaten two all time greats (Gomez, Nelson) and other good championship caliber fighters (Lopez, Laporte) is astonishing.

Gomez may have been coming up in weight, but his power was truly sickening.

 

What Sanchez did its equivalent to Canelo beating Mayweather and GGG. At 23, you know he hadn't reached his prime yet. 25-26 woulda been best Sanchez.