Those low blows are what messed him up in the Tito fight. I thought he was posed for the fight and was doing extremely well after getting caught cold in the first round. His reflexes were on point and his slipping skills were remarkable. Tito just knew how to fight dirty when he had to. But had Tito not hit him low Vargas would have been fresher in the later rounds and who knows maybe he would have been the first to beat Tito. He was definitely up on the scorecards at one point during the fight!
Still has a vastly better overall record than him. Kostya has always and will always be overrated. There's a reason Kostya didn't wanna fight no Floyd Mayweather, Jr after he destroyed Gatti. Hatton and Cotto were the same!!
I respect that, this is just for fun and all hypothetical. To me Crawford already achieved what he can at 140 as the rest of the crops are clearly behind. He is also recognise as a current p4p player. As you said his career is still progressing and most likely on an upwards trajectory. Assuming it is so and he somehow manage to win a 147 title beating spence for example, this mythical match up still relevance as the proposed meeting is at 140. I remember awhile ago tszyu was beating cotto quite handily on similar poll at 140, eventhough we all now tszyu never ventured outside this weight class and cotto managed to win titles at 140, 147, 154 and 160.
So did Ray Robinson, as a matter of fact every book I've ever read on Sugar Ray, and any old timer interview I've ever seen or read that witnessed Robinson as a 135-147 pound fighter has said Ray was as unbeatable at those weights.
I remember watching Tszyu vs Judah live, and thinking Zab was just clowning after the knockdown. I was pretty pissed when Neady stopped the fight, from what I thought at the time was Zab messin' around.