Oscar De La Hoya vs Sergio Martinez at 154

Martinez gets stopped

 

Mayorga did have a decent chin, but he's been smoked way too many times for me to say it's better than Martinez's, he was KOd by Trinidad, KOd by De La Hoya, stopped by Cotto, knocked out cold by Mosley, all at various points in his career. Martinez was only beaten when he was inexperienced and way past his prime after taking a 10 round beating. People are way too impressed with Mayorga's taunting against Vernon Forrest, he did that by rolling with the shots.

I will agree that Oscar does have more one punch power than Cotto or Margarito, but not by much, all 3 guys were very good punchers.

And pretty much any elite fighter will be more skilled than Margarito, but idk about De La Hoya > Cotto in terms of skills. Oscar comes forward and throws punches. Usually behind jabs, mixing in as many left hooks as he can. The one other dimension to that gameplan was moving on his toes and throwing flashy combos, which he did against Trinidad and to Hopkins to an extent. Now Cotto isn't Pernell Whitaker either, but he has shown alot of improvement to his overall ability as a fighter, the ability to box and move (Mosley, Margarito fights), educated stalking (see the whole first half of his career up until Margarito I), he's shown an improvement in defense and head movement, an intelligent game plan against Mayweather, coming in behind a high guard, bullying him to the ropes and working combinations, excellent body work, textbook punching technique for all of his punches basically, and the brand new wrapped up package that he has shown in the past few fights with Freddie Roach.

Both De La Hoya and Cotto are skilled, you can't win a gold medal without having skill. But who really knows how Cotto's skill matches up against Martinez since all we saw was Cotto fight a shell of Sergio.

 

Mayorga had a hell of a chin in is prime. After his failed attempt at 160 and getting KTFO by Tito, he went on to have moved back down to 154 where he was dominated by Oscar De La Hoya like no one else had or has dominated him in similar fashion. Even Trinidad was KD and busted up a bit against Mayorga.

Miguel Cotto had a ridiculously hell of a hard time with a completely shot Mayorga as did Mosley. Mosley was lucky to win the way he did and had it gone to the cards a good case could have been made for a Mayorga win. ODLH handled a much better Mayorga with relative ease and in complete dominant fashion.

Oscar De La Hoya went life and death against an elite, and prime-peak version of Shane Mosley and lost by split decision. I had it 7-5 Mosley with many close rounds. ODLH then avenged his loss in dominant fashion but was clearly robbed. I had the Mosley-DLH rematch 9-3 fo Oscar.

Oscar excelled against boxer-punchers in his prime. For a boxer puncher ODLH is very fast. In fact. in the 1st Mosley fight, Oscar beat Mosley to the draw for the first half, until he started tiring around the 9th round....

....in the 2nd Mosley fight, Oscar was clearly faster, even Shane Mosley was telling his dad Oscar was too quick...This is speedy power boxer Mosley, the same Mosley who arguably beat Cotto 4 years later when Cotto was peaking in his prime and Mosley had 5 losses and was clearly past his best by several years.

Oscar's jab was one of the best of his era, arguably the best jab. They referred to it as a shot-gun jab,and he beat many top fighters with it, including Vargas, Trinidad, and the 2nd Mosley fight. The only other fighter to give him a run for his money in the jab department was Ike Quartey's jab.

Last, Oscar is taller, has a much longer reach, has a powereful jab, a faster jab, a harder left hook, and quite frankly is on another level than Cotto.

Oscar = ATG
Cotto = HoF

 

Prime vs prime or now Martinez wins

 

Oscar all day. He never lost to a guy with limited fundamentals.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you that De La Hoya is better than Cotto. If they both fought in their primes, I would put my money on De La Hoya at 140, 147, 154. At 160, not too sure, but Oscar clearly looked fat and unmotivated against Felix Sturm who is a very solid middleweight and although he was in much better shape for Bernard Hopkins, he could never beat Hopkins anyway.

I never said Cotto>De La Hoya, I just said that in terms of overall skill, Cotto is in alot of areas, more sound technically. De La Hoya is able to fight the way he does because I believe he is more of a natural fighter and athlete than Cotto, he moves more naturally on his toes, his punches are more fluid, and he can keep his hands at chest level at times, because he has little to fear with his rock solid chin. He also faster hands than Cotto. Cotto's hands do look fast too at times, but he seems to try to punch faster than his natural handspeed, where De La Hoya is just quick. De La Hoya's style is alot more of a natural fighting style than Cotto's, who's more of a trained fighter.

But again, I'd still pick Oscar to beat Cotto. Technical skill does not always guarantee victory over athleticism (EX: Jones vs. Toney, Barrera vs. Pacquiao, Forrest vs. Mayorga) (although I wouldn't call Mayorga the most naturally agile fighter, he was certainly born to fight, smokes all those cigs and still manages to go 12 rounds no problem, certainly much less technical than Forrest). But all that is irrelevant to the topic of discussion. The fact is that Sergio Martinez never lost a fight in his prime (if you wanna count the fight against Paul Williams, go ahead). What Cotto did or what Margarito did is not irrelevant, but it's certainly not that significant. Paul Williams came the closest to dealing a prime Martinez a loss, so you could say that perhaps height or a high workrate could be troubling for Martinez. But there is nothing to suggest that a De La Hoya type boxer would give him trouble in his prime.

I'm not nuthugging here, I'm a huge fan of both fighters. And I don't have a problem with people saying De La Hoya would beat him, Oscar De La Hoya was an excellent champion in his prime. But he "KOs him easily", "Martinez gets stopped brutally", c'mon. Lets talk about each fighter at their best. In that case, Zab Judah and Edwin Valero both easily beat De La Hoya since Oscar lost to Pacquiao when he was 35 and weight drained, he loses to all attacking or speedy southpaws.

 

DLH was a level above Martinez.

 

Oscar wins UD

 

DLH wasn't as good at 154 as he had been at lower weights, but still good enough to probably beat Martinez.

 

Good post.

The problem is, it could end up looking like Barrera Hamed.

 

Oscar's jab would have served him well against Sergio. I think he could win though Sergio had great stamina and Oscar was apt to fade in some fights.