Top 10 P4P Puerto Rican Pugilists...

He is all time top 15 of Super-Bantamweight and on the border to top 10 in my opinion, just as stopped long time Featherweight champion Luevano, defended this three times successful, including against Rafael Marquez.
So his achievements are superior than of Cocoa (at Welterweight) with his over fifty defeats.

 

Vasquez is a consideration for a place in the top 10 but I'd personally have him in or around the 15 spot probably.

George got the four greatest absolutely right, which includes Trinidad. The only question is the order. But Ortiz is definitely top 4 - who else on this list is a top 10 fighter in one of the original 8 divisions (I personally have Ortiz as the 5th greatest lightweight of all time)?

You don't seem to rate Basora at all but he beat some outstanding fighters and held the greatest fighter that ever lived to a deserved draw in SRR's prime. He should at least be a contender for a top 10 spot. And you're over-rating JuanMa to an absurd degree. You mention his win over Rafael Marquez but Marquez was clearly finished by that point - prime for prime Marquez would have beaten Lopez, I'm sure.

As for Cocoa Kid ('Chocolate'?), yes, he has a lot of losses but look who he fought! I'd love to see what JuanMa's record looked like if he'd had even half the number of fights Cocoa Kid had. Even as it is, JuanMa lost 6 in 43 fights and all by KO. The Kid had only one more defeat by KO than Lopez in nearly 250 fights. Fighters often lost more in the past because they fought more and they were often matched tough. Lopez was largely a hype job who as soon as he tasted defeat, carried on losing. If he'd fought with the same frequency and been matched with the same toughness, I doubt he'd have much more then a 50% winning record by this point.

 

If he's a top 15 super bantamweight then that doesn't say much for the depth of that weight division! How do you figure his achievements are superior?! He won a portion of a world title and defended it some times - okay... that distinguishes him particularly in what way from any number of paper world champions? When he met someone who could actually fight and was a live opponent (Orlando Salido) he got his ass handed to him - twice. He was shot after that and had no punch resistance. I can only imagine how bad his record would be if he carried on for even 100 fights let alone the 250 that Cocoa Kid had in his career.

 

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I have him at the lower top ten places.

But Trinidad should be likely at the top I suppose (though Benitez and maybe Gomez are close to him). I have Ortit at place 12, but Trinidad is most likely in the top 10 of Welterweight (have him around the 7. place), as he had many more title-defences (he is possible top 20 in Light-Middleweight too), while Benitez is top 10 in Light-Welterweight, around 20 in Welterweight and on the border to 10 in Light-Middleweight.
There is only one original division or maybe two, in my opinion.

Basora is not very well known and myself is not familar with him. There have to a reason that he is so unpopular and unknown. He would be probably more famous, if he had achieved more. I got asked maybe by you or someone else about boxers like Willy Blain or Mahmmed Abdulajew among others, supposing they can't be that good when they under the radar here.

Don't mix up Cocoa with Chocolate, who achieved much more (in Featherweight). The first one never came close to a world title, so it is more than questionable if he was ever elite. Lopez on the other hand was a force in Super-Bantamweight, where he won all his professional bouts and was clearly better than Marquez in it. I even rate him ahead Caballero a little bit there. He simply outclassed the vey most of his opponents. His defeats came just when he got careless and recless in the highter weight-classes, but he showed very decent defensive skills in the first fight with Ponce De Leon, who he countered out from the ropes and avoided to get punched before. There are not many boxers which would be favourite over him in this division, as he had not only the power there, but was a pound for pound knockout-artist there (like a top 5 puncher pound for pound, one decade ago). He won about 9 or 10 world title bouts in row; who many won Cocoa?

 

But what was Cocoa biggest achievement at his peak? Lopez at his best shined much lighter and hotter than him: Ponce De Leon was regarded high when, was a pound for pound knockouter himself and had previous about 9 successful title-defences. Lopez blowed him away in 2 rounds, which appeared easily, also the win against the only once in about 35 profi-fights defeated Argentinian appears decent.
He was ranked in the pound for pound top 10, at latest when he moved up to Featherweight, but possibly before already. Was Cocoa Kid ever rated that high?

 

I am so stealing " knockouter," just so we're clear.

 

Felix Trinidad #1

 

You can also steal outknocked or onknocked from me.

 

No, those sound ridiculous.

 

How about offknocked?

 

Hahaha, you have to be taking the **** with this comment. Go back and read your original post where you reference 'Chocolate' completely out of the blue!

My reference to 'Chocolate' had inverted commas around it for a reason. But you clearly missed that nuance!

 

Ortiz easily in my opinion, George.
He was a truly great fighter.
I would rank Benitez well above Gomez even though Gomez looked incredible at times. 122 was considered to be a fairly bogus division back in the days when Gomez was making all those defences against a pretty mediocre line up of contenders. Zarate was aging and was a bantamweight going up in weight. It was a very good win by Gomez but he should have been fighting at featherweight earlier as that was where the real action was.

Benitez managed to perform at an absolute world class level from 140 to 154 and he fought prime versions of Leonard and Hearns and was competitive with both. He also boxed Duran’s ears off at 154 and one punch kayoed Mo Hope who was a pretty good fighter. That puts him ahead of Gomez for mine.

Cheers Mate.

 

Anyway Chocolate have to be rated superior, as he was world champion, while Cocoa was rather a gate-keeper or contender.

 

Kid Chocolate was CUBAN His nick name was The Cuban Bon Bon!!!FFS!

 

You do know that Kid Chocolate was Cuban so has nothing to do with a thread on Puerto Rico?