Lora vs Zaragoza

I think the main weaknesses Lora had were 1. he's an average puncher, who relies on surprising with accuracy while fighting quite aggressively by counterpunching/defensive specialist standards.He's never afraid to stay in range and trade counters or infight, something that could be risky in a division with a lot of big punchers and relentless stalking types.

2. that totally confident in their technique mentality that a lot of great defensive fighters(starling being the most guilty imo) can lapse into; an eye for overlooking the steady, unflashy efficient approach in favour of waiting on the more spectacular counter or sequence of defence etc.I wouldn't call it a lack of a will to win per se, but maybe more of an inability to realise they were actually falling behind/making things closer than they needed to be.

That was partially why he came undone against Perez.Even with the mexican's own talent and freakish physical advantages, it was a fight Lora probably could have won had he not so stubbornly stuck to the kind of things he would do from his usual comfort zone.Perez size and workrate made that impossible and only ended up tiring him out.


The only other active Bantamweights since he was champ that i would give more than a very marginal chance at victory would be Canizales and Fenech.Both very intriguing fights.Sahaprom, Galaxy, bantamweight Moon, Tapia, old Konadu don't match up well imo and the rest are barely worth discussing.Gimme Lora clearly over Chandler and Pintor as well, albeit in good fights.

Zarate probably is your best bet for a consistent victor over 15 rounds.His size, top-notch offensive skills and most importantly both in combination with that power, make for a tough obstacle to overcome through finesse alone.He would be tough to get in countering range and would likely get enough work in each time to have slowed Lora enough to pull away over the last 5 rounds.Maybe a few knockdowns etc...if lora had comparable power like Gomez did, zarate would go from good bet for consistent winner to good bet to getting consistently destroyed, but he doesn't.

Lora would make for fun fights with most of the Bantam greats and near-greats.Chucho Castillo, Rudkin, Rose, Herrera, Olivares, Jofre, ORtiz, Sanstol, Brown...can't imagine there being many bad fights there.

 

Yeah, good stuff Mante, especially point 2.

 

Well Zarate's pretty efficient at putting your lights out if you leave an opening, and falling in would be an opening enough. Another thing: Zarate only has to be lucky once, Lora has to be lucky always, if you know what I mean. He's well capable of getting into a countering match with Lora even if he comes off worse in most exchanges, because he's such a heavy hitter among other things.