Ricardo Lopez undeated champion

Sources or it didn't happen, El. :bart

 

Lopez was very good but his level of competition was not the best. Sure, he fought who was out there... at his weight... but who was out there?

Hardcore boxing fans of the day wanted to see him rise in weight and take on the likes of Michael Carbajal, Humberto Gonzalez, Myung-Woo Yuh, or even Hiroki Ioka (the only man to defeat Yuh) at 108 Lbs.

It was 3 fvcking Lbs!!! I've taken shlts bigger than that. Eventually he did fight at 108 but it was too late to fight the mentioned fighters.

The only fighter he really struggled with was Rosendo Alvarez. They fought to a TD8 in '98 and Lopez beat him by SD in '98 as well.

It would have been nice to see him vs. at least one of the guys mentioned above. I'm not convinced he could have beat Carbajal.

 

like the posts so far. there were a handful of fights, outside his weight class, that could have added to his legacy.

by nature of his size, he could never be a top 10 guy. The division NEVER had the talent needed to do that. at least never at one time.

lopez is judged primarily on his skills, which were immaculate and is punished for his resume, which is understandably weak

 

Yes, and there's a definitely as big a weight disparity between Straw and Light-Fly as there is middle and Light Heavy, Zadfrak. You schooled me, and I apologise.

 

If you don't rate Lopez as the best thing since sliced bread then you are bombarded with useless spreadsheets about fighters he beat that were 'paperweight champion for 15 years afterward'.

He had a couple of good wins. But nothing special. Yeah, aesthetically, he's a joy to watch. But with his frame, he should've moved up.

 

for Michael Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez my take is this: lopez can't be punished or accused of ducking them necessarily but he can't be rewarded for not fighting them either.

they aren't knocks against him for me but do represent massive gaps in his legacy that could have been filled by fighting either

 

This.

 

Yes, a fight vs. Yuri Arbachakov would have been great but if he didn't want to go up 3 Lbs. I doubt he'd want to go up 7. Hell, why not put on yet another 3 and take on Khaosai Galaxy? It would have been nice had he taken chances like this.

All in all we're talking about a 10 Lb weight gain... even if he took on Galaxy. It's less than 10% of his prime fighting weight limit of 105 Lbs. When a guy goes from 147 to 160 (very common) it's about a 9% jump... about the same as if Lopez would have fought Galaxy.

 

yeah, definitely this. Winds me up when fighters get rated negatviely for not fighting certain fighters, as if that is an automatic indication that they could not have beaten those fighters. I rate fighters on what they did though, who they did beat, and who they did lose to, call me crazy though.............

 

well said. his career isn't docked for not having these fights and all we can judge him on are the fights he did have. unfortunately, no hall of famers are on his ledger and it would've certainly helped if they were

 

So he probably does not deserve top 30 ranking but then why didn't Michael Carbajal & Humberto Gonzales come to him ?

because they were bigger , and those 3 lbs were critical for them but doable for Lopez . He was in fact smaller . Sure , he was no Langford or Armstrong , but then those 2 were stopped by men their own size (3 lbs heavier in Armstrong's case :yep)
Greb was initially stopped twice by bigger men when he tried it , but I won't compare Lopez 2 Greb yet .

 

And on that basis, Lopez can't really hope for a very flattering All-Time Great Ranking.

Probably? Definitely not.

 

yep, that's it

end/thread

 

see post 28

 

Teeto has been blessed with the power to end threads.