I'm pretty sure this isn't going to be a thread that catches on fire, but have any of our posters here scored this one? Is it as close as the scores indicate, or was it a poorly scored affair?
Saw it back in the day and scored it. I scored it a draw, but I would really like another crack at it. I've always been impartial but I have to admit that being such an Olivares fan I would like to make sure that didn't bleed over into my score. To be fair to myself, I did think there was a knockdown or two that was ruled a slip that I would have scored for Kotey. I will also be fair to Olivares that he partied his arse off all the way to the Forum that night. He was not yet a shell, he just wasn't in shape.
So this was Ruben right in the middle of his playboy life style? By what time do you think Olivares was a spent force? Just how long was too long for him? Definitely a fighter I'm interested in learning much more about... There seems to be a good documentary available on him, but I'm not exactly fluent in Spanish. Sigh....
Oh, no, his partying started as a bantam and he was well at the end of 118 during the Pimental and Hererra fights. It was this that pushed him up to 126. He had such natural talent - like Mando Ramos for another example - that he could get away with it. But you can only do that so long. When he whipped himself into sterling condition he was simply unbeatable. I truly believe he would have been there with any feather - let alone bantam - in the history of the game. But it was as a feather, where his body and the amount of fights and partying really began to erode. But some of his truly great performances at 126 would be the rematch with Hafey, the first and second Chacon fights, even the Arguello fight. I also liked his bouts with Walter Seeley (only stopped once in his career, by Ruben), the Carlos Mendoza fight and the Utagawa fight for the vacant title was beautiful. Watch how he calmly chops the Japanese up body and then head. Even late in his career when he was washed up he would still pull out a really nice win over guys like Fernando Cabanela and Jose Luis Ramirez. But he was really done by the Kotey fight. Just partied away anything that was left. Kotey wouldn't have been a sparring partner to Ruben a few years earlier. Sorry for getting so wordy.
