Almost like Roberto Duran, Arguello had so many great wins later in his career that his early brilliance is often overlooked. Two days shy of two years after beating the great Ernesto Marcel, Leonel Hernandez was stopped by Alexis Arguello. Even earlier in 73', Arguello knocks out 133-11 Jose Legrea in one round! Six months before this Legrea took the great Eder Jofre to a MD. A few fights prior to this Alexis Arguello nukes the experienced and durable 81-23 Kid Pascualito in three rounds. 41-9 Octavio Gomez was blasted out in two. Not an easy road up, Arguello's.
I liked that one stretch of his when he pretty much cleaned up the 130 lb division in a short time frame against those tough hombres like Chacon/Limon/ & Boza Edwards. Pretty tough task to go thru those guys and not even have a tough fight or one he had to dig deep to win.
I think the win over Leonel Hernandez is very underrated. Hernandez was not a joke, he had a decent hand speed, good right hand, good foot work, head movement and good skills overall. Arguello beat him because he used his reach and skills, and brought to the ring a good plan that he executed with great ability. I don't remember who was the favourite for this fight, but I do know that many people thought that Hernandez was going to win, especially the venezuelan people who were calling Hernandez "Campeon" even before the fight. People thought that Hernandez was going to do what Olivares coudn't do. There were counting on Hernandez skills to do the job, and could had happend, unfortunately the two fights Alexis had against Marcel and Olivares help Arguello to improve his skills and actually learned how to fight that type of boxers better. I think Hernandez would have been a champion if wasn't Arguello the opponent that night. I personally consider Hernandez a good fighter who could have had a great chance to beat some of the featherweights from this or recent eras. I would give him a good chance to beat the version of Barrera who fought Hamed.
Gannigan is also an underrated win he was a good fighter and a big banger(he even Dropped Alexis) and if im not mistaken he was undefeated when he faced Arguello. its also an underrated fight.
Yes, Ganigan is an underrated win. Before the fight against Alexis, Ganigan had beaten Sean O'Grady, he smoked him, and that's why he got the chance to fight Arguello. Ganigan had a canon for left hook. Very powerful fighter, with a weird style, on top of that southpaw, with a decent chin.... a complete banger. And yes, he dropped Alexis in the first round, then Arguello dropped Ganingan in the 3rd and KO him in the 5th.
Bombing out Legra and Gomez is very impressive IMO. Legra was a recently-deposed ex-champ and had lost only a handful of times over 100-plus fights. Gomez was considered the quickest and slickest FW of his day, and would go on to score impressive wins over Danny Lopez and Raf Herrera after that. Arguello also had another reportedly dominant win over Art Hafey, a respected perennial contender and regular attraction at the Inglewood Forum, who was recently coming off a big KO win over Olivares and then a close, debatable loss in a rematch. Part of what makes these wins so "underrated" today is that they were hidden away in Nicaragua. If Arguello had, say, come up to Inglewood and KO'd those guys prior to fighting Olivares, he probably would've left a much bigger memory of them - plus there might actually be films of them as well.
