I have always loved the lighter weights (Bantam through SFW are likely my favorites), but it always seems we debate and discuss the HW division. So I figured even if no one else joins me I am going to pay tribute to the bantam weight division: My top 10 list 1. Panama Al Brown 2. Eder Jofre 3. Manuel Ortiz 4. George Dixon 5. Ruben Olivares 6. Terry McGovern 7. Fighting Harada 8. "Joltin" Jeff Chandler 9. Carlos Zarate 10. Pete Herman My favorite bantams 1. Jeff Chandler 2. Happy Lora 3 Jeff Fenech 4 Lionel Rose 5 Olivares 6 Zarate 7 Davila 8 Ortiz 9 Pintor 10 Rafa Just missing out Orlando & Gabby Some of my favorite Bantamweight fights both live and televised: 1 Joltin' Jeff Chandler vs Baby kid Chocolate (live in Upper Darby) 2 Chandler vs The Dancing Machine Johnny Carter (Live in Philly) 3 Chandler vs Gabby Canizales (Live in AC NJ) I saw just about half of Chandler's fights live, but these 3 stick out. Ayala vs Tapia I Rafa vs Austin Jofre vs Medal I Harada vs Jofre II Rose vs Harada Olivares vs castillio Zarate vs Zamora Zarate vs Davila Pintor vs Davila Duarte vs Davila Lora vs Davila Lora vs Zaragoza Fenech vs zaragoza Lora vs vazquez Gabby Canizales vs Lora (one of my favorite short fights) Fenech vs McCrory Canizales vs seabrooks I How about anyone else....Who are the greatest bantams??? Who are your favorites? What are the greatest fights? Links to fights? lesser known bantam wars? Edit: my list has since changed lol
My Top 10 1-Eder Jofre 2-Panama Al Brown 3-Manuel Ortiz 4-Ruben Olivares 5-Carlos Zarate 6-Fighting Harada 7-Lionel Rose Now it´s too close, NO ORDER: Jeff Chandler Orlando Canizales Miguel Lora *I don´t rate guys like McGovern, Pete Herman and some others because I don´t know enough about them.....my knowledge is not great on them. I give a big value to dominance. My Top 3 is based on that, H2H skills and resume too(obviously). Jofre, Brown and Ortiz are the guys who better combined all these things...Jofre and Brown the best H2H forces at the weight in my view... I rate Rose very high because IMHO his resume is just impressive, he has great wins enough to rate him that high despite never have been a dominant champion or something.....same with Harada. Both extremely great in a H2H comparions with anyone too.... My Favorite BWs: 1-Eder Jofre 2-Panama Al Brown 3-Lionel Rose 4-Bernardo Caraballo 5-Hozumi Hasegawa 6-Jeff Chandler 7-Rafael Marquez 8-Alan Rudkin 9-Fighting Harada 10-Rafael Herrera
2 years ago ESB classic (Rumsfeld) did a collective ranking of the original 8 weight classes...Here is how the classic forum tallied this division...Jofre got 14 out of 23 first place votes and ended up there by consensus as well, so it would seem that your viewpoint is certainly the majority one....I didn't feel that 2 was too harsh of a placement either way> OFFICIAL LIST 1. 470 Eder Jofre (14) 2. 301 Ruben Olivares (4) 3. 256 Manuel Ortiz (1) 4. 186 Panama Al Brown (2) 5. 183 Terry McGovern (1) 6. 165 Carlos Zarate 7. 135 George Dixon (1) 8. 77 Fighting Harada 9. 64 Pete Herman 10. 15 Bud Taylor 11. 14 Orlando Canizales 12. 12 Lionel Rose 13. 11 Rafael Herrera 14. 10 Kid Williams 15. 9 [tie] Chucho Castillo 15. 9 [tie] Jeff Chandler 15. 9 [tie] Joe Lynch 18. 8 Rafael Marquez 19. 4 [tie] Lupe Pinter 19. 4 [tie] Rodolfo Martinez 19. 4 [tie] Sixto Escobar 22. 3 Jose Medel 23. 2 [tie] Miguel Lora 23. 2 [tie] Memphis Pal Moore 25. 1 [tie] Hozumi Hasegawa 25. 1 [tie] Jose Becerra Link to the discussion: http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=205064
I love how in every damn picture of Eder Jofre the hand he is not punching with is glued to his face textbook perfect
Educated list for sure; interesting to see such an obvious favorite like Zarate so far down the list. For most, it seems he's top three easy. Some even have him #1.....
It seems that most would agree with you! I most commonly see him in the top 20 range, and generally in the 13-15 range. I try not to let my biases affect my rankings both positive and negative...like most I am sure that I am not totally immune to that happening. At his best I like jeff's chances against just about any bantam H2H (perhaps that Philly bias again???). I wish that the Pintor fight had come off...If Jeff had won that the argument for top 10 would likely not draw such criticism??? oh well to each their own.
Zamora v Eusabio Pedroza. Posted it a couple of weeks ago but wtf, it's a great KO so worth another posting [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrlGdRCttjk[/ame]