Oscar De La Hoya: best 1st 5 years of any career ever??

Exactly sweetpea.His P4P rating was highly contentious nonsense, i suspect mainly designed to spite Jones because he was getting lazy with his matchmaking.

and i'm just not impressed with flatly using numbers of world titles to boost arguments when those titles are splinter belts and WBO crap.Should we put Grigorian on the same level as Benny Leonard because he defended a lightweight world title belt so many times?.

Sticking to ability shown and opinions on fighters defeated should be the most important thing.If anyone thinks Oscar rates extremely highly in those respects for his first five years that's fair enough.

 

Genaro Hernandez - Genaro probably outweighed by 15lbs coming up in weight, good win but Genaro wasnt really a great

Ruelas - top win, not against a P4P fighter

Chavez - Chavez was not longer P4P and was ranked below Randal and Tyszu at 140

Whitaker - Whitaker was fortunate to get the win in his previous fight against Hurtado and would have lost if it wasnt for a stoppage. Whitaker won on 50% of fans cards and Delahoya ducks the rematch

Now compare that to wins over:

Toney: P4P no1 for many, undefeated, completely shut out

Hopkins - Middleweight champ for next 11 years and 1 of the best ever at that weight

Mallinger - beat Nigel Benn once and robbed against him another time, dispatched in a 1 sided mid rounds stoppage

 

Oscar became no. 1 p4p in the Ring rankings during the period where Jones got DQ'ed for hitting Griffin when he was down. This was also the time when DLH beat Whitaker.

They put DLH no.1 despite the writer for Ring who covered the DLH-Whitaker fight (Steve Farhood) thinking Whitaker had done enough to beat DLH.

In truth, DLH was never better than Roy Jones.

 

A sure sign he'd been in the game for a LONG time.

That's all good, but it doesn't give any credence to him not being shot.

That's pretty old for a fighter of Chavez's style.

The stoppage in the Randall rematch is one of the most bogus in the history of the sport. He was cut and didn't want to fight anymore so they awarded him the victory. Complete BS. Taylor was shot by that point as well.

None of these guys are top class operators at the time though.

He was passing his prime against Whitaker, and that fight put him on the downward spiral methinks. He was just a shell by the time Oscar took him out.

If you count the Douglas loss than maybe. Names on a resume(as long as they're taken into context) mean A LOT more than paper accomplishments to me. Saying Oscar being Chavez twice sounds great at first unless taken into context.

 

I'm pretty sure Jones was still #1 after De La Hoya beat Whitaker. That changed after Jones was DQ'd against Griffin 4 months later then De La Hoya took the top spot. I'm pretty sure De La Hoya stayed there until he was beaten by Trinidad. I'm not 100% on all that. I could check with the Rings from around that time which are in neat piles at the top of my cupboard. It means lifting a few off as they are at the bottom of the pile.

 

At the end of 1996 Jones was p4p no.1 and Oscar was the no.2 p4p. Jones got DQ'ed about 3 weeks before Whitaker-DLH took place (Jones got DQ'ed in March 1997, the DLH-Whitaker fight happened in April 1997). I'm pretty sure DLH became no.1 exactly when he beat Whitaker and by the the time of the DLH-Quartey fight Jones reclaimed the top spot from DLH.

I'm not sure of this, but if you have the mags from around the time, it would well be worth bringing them out.

 

Apoligies. I'm getting mixed up with the Jones-Griffin rematch which was in August 97, four months after De La Hoya-Whitaker. I have a feeling that Whitaker was #2 behind Jones at the end of 96. Only one way to check. Back soon.

 

The Ring, December 95.

1. Pernell Whitaker
2. Roy Jones
3. Ricardo Lopez

The Ring, September 97 (Jones, Whitaker, De La Hoya all on cover) This issue was after De La Hoya-Whitaker and Jones-Griffin I)

1. Oscar De La Hoya
2. Roy Jones
3. Pernell Whitaker

The Ring, December 98.

1. Oscar De La Hoya
2. Roy Jones
3. Evander Holyfield

Don't have any Rings from late 96.

 

I'm surprised Ring kept DLH at the no.1 spot for so long. Not only did their chief writer think DLH lost to Pea, but DLH then went on a bum beating bonanza taking on the likes of Kamau, Rivera, Carpentier, Camacho and Chavez. Those were the fights the no.1 fighter in the world was taking?

Mind you, by the time Roy Jones reclaimed the p4p mantle, he wasn't fighting anything much better.

 

And I'm sure he was there until the Trinidad fight. 100% sure actually.