Having watched La Porte's losing effort against Julio Cesar Chavez earlier in the week, I was considering how well the Puerto Rican would have done against these great Mexicans. Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, and Juan Manuel Marquez. I don't feel confident enough to answer the question considering how little I have actually seen of La Porte. Perhaps he was an otherwise average fighter, but he certainly turned up against JCC. He punched with him for all 12 rounds, and showed great punch resistance in the process. Who's style is most effective against La Porte? The fight would be staged at 130lbs. A scheduled 12 rounds.
Laporte dropped razor thin decisions to the likes of Julio Cesar Chavez, Azumah Nelson, Salvador Sanchez and Eusebio Pedroza. He arguably beat Nelson and Pedroza. Some think he earned the nod against Chavez too, (though not with the best of justifications imo). That said, he also got beaten by the likes of Gerard Hayes, fairly well handled by Barry McGuigan and outright pummeled by an aging Wilfredo Gomez. I guess it depends on which Laporte turns up. Imo he has the ability to beat all three of them, but his lack of killer instinct and non-existent ring generalship makes me pause before selecting him to do so.
Gomez was just plain excellent beating LaPorte. A writer at the time said it was like Gomez was a puppet master making LaPorte make the moves he made.
I like all three of them to beat him comfortably by decision. Laporte had all the tools, but god, he was frustrating to watch. Often made fights muh tougher than they should have been. I also have to respectfully disagree with SS when he says he dropped "razor thin" decisions to Pedroza and Sanchez. I think both beat him rather easily. The Pedroza fight could have gone differently had the champ not been quite so filthy, but the maddening thing about watching that fight was the notion I had as the rounds mounted that Pedroza didn't really need to foul him like that to win. I thought he could have pulled away from Laporte just as easily in the championship rounds had he fought cleanly.
