Ranking the most skilled Mexican fighters

In terms of pure skill, I'd say Sanchez, Canto, Roman, Lopez, & Marquez would round out a top 5.

 

Marquez was a great combination puncher and counterpuncher, but In a field of fighters where almost everyone is that, I think he's too easy to hit flush and lacking a bit in terms of footwork to be in a top five. He's too concerned with always being planted to return fire quickly (which is a strength against certain styles of opponent tbf) and not multi-directional enough in his arsenal compared to a lot of the others.

Pintor, Zaragoza, Rafa Marquez and Morales are the weakest in terms of pure technical skill/brains on raiden's list, imo. Pintor threw nice punches, but was a relentlessly steady workhorse without a lot of finesse and relied a fair bit on imposing his very good physicality on fighters...Zaragoza was tricky and smart rather than having lots of talent, but far too inconsistent with his punching technique and pretty easy to hit. Rafa Marquez...nice punches, yet also a pretty basic, defensively limited boxer-puncher that relied a lot on simply having excellent power rather than high ring smarts. Morales did have the tools to occasionally look great technically, but far too often he wasn't a reliable ring general, could get sloppy, poor defensively, and relied too regularly on having great durability. Not to crap on these guys, they were hardly Ricardo Mayorga, but their true strengths were generally in other areas.

I'd go with

Miguel Canto

Then in no particular order

Gilberto Roman
Vicente Saldivar
Julio Cesar Chavez
Gato Gonzalez
Ruben Olivares
Chucho Castillo
Rafael Herrera
Salvador Sanchez
Ricardo Lopez
Carlos Zarate

then in no particular order

Jose Medel
Efren Torres
Rodolfo Martinez
Guty Espadas sr
Raul Jibaro Perez
Juan Manuel Marquez
Marco Antonio Barrera
Canelo Alvarez
Juan Francisco Estrada


reserving the right to change some places on rewatching a bunch of fights. There's not a lot in it between many of these guys though, and some I really need to refresh my memory of. I mostly seperated the two big tiers on the lower one having different combinations of worse defence, not as consistent in their ring generalship, and lack of multi-directional facility.

 

The stand outs are to me… Canto, Olivares, JCC Snr, Zarate and maybe Roman? I haven’t watched Churcho… - I don’t think Sanchez is so close to the top, but I would imagine he’ll feature many times as one of the top guys but really he wasn’t IMO he was nearer to Marquez, Barrera and Canelo.

 

Jose Medel mentioned? Damn...

 

This for me. Salvidor in there too. Like the other poster said, Canto being the runt had to have some of the best footwork this sport has ever seen, which he did imo. Canto top 3 easy for me

 

Roman?

 

"Not, Virginia, Duckelo Alvarez is not Top5 of most skilled mexicans, probably not even Top10"

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Excellent list my pal. For my personal taste I would swap Morales for Zarate

 

What, some of you think Marquez vs more skilled then Saldivar or Olivares?

 

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So how how do you guys see Olivares/Saldivar against Norwood or Chris John? Because I don't have to think very hard on those.

 

Looking through some footage of Chucho Castillo, Herrera and Rodolfo Martinez again, I've been very impressed with just how technical these guys were, and Medel too. Olivares and Zarate put distance between them overall not because they were notably more skilled (they were similarly skilled), but because they also had great power and were a few notches more impressive athletically ( particularly Olivares) which gives them the edge in a technical fight, or also had more difficult basic physical dimensions to overcome (particularly Zarate, but I was suprised how small castillo looked next to Olivares, I don't think Chucho's stated height/reach are quite correct).

 

Saldivar gets a lot of points for me due to being at clear height and reach disadvantages, as McGrain said. He's similar to Canto in that respect, though not as extreme. Plus, he did have his very good/excellent power to bolster his unnerring precision with. For someone so often on the front foot and throwing a lot, he was also an underrated, very effective minimalist defensive fighter, with a very good sense of space and how to come out of exchanges best without compromising his own offensive work with uneconomical moves.

His only drawback to me was that he wasn't as multi-directional as some of the others. Push him back or bring him to a standstill and he was quite a bit less effective, but nobody really managed it often enough until he was on the decline.

 

Really good discussion this. Great read.

 

Canelo is a greatly skilled fighter no doubt. What I miss from him is more variation in his footwork.

It's funny that when reach has become such a talking point (mostly in General tbf to make excuses for Loma), I haven't seen how much reach Canelo regularly gives up mentioned a single time I think.

While I agree that Chavez was highly skilled, I prefer Canelo here. Chavez was better at pushing the pace and cutting off the ring, though. Think I'd have Canelo above Marquez as well, but a very interesting one that comparison. Sanchez is a very tricky one since his style was so unique and Lopez too since he enjoyed height and reach advantage in just about every fight.

As for most of the other named thrown in here, I don't know them well enough to offer an opinion but I've really enjoyed reading the input on them in this thread.