how good were these three? often overlooked and in the shadow of other mexican great. Vicente Salvidar was the better of the three IMHO, very all round boxer puncher, great body puncher. beat guys like Ismeal Laguna, Sugar Ramos, Legra, Mutsuri Seki, Raul Rojas and of course the trilogy with Howard Winstone winning all 3, he held the featherweight title for 6 years fought the great eder Jofre when he was passed his best. Chiquita Gonzalez we know more about as his era was more recent, he doesn't get credit for how much of big puncher he was, the way he transfered his weight into his punches was incredible, we all remember his great fights with carbajal the first of which was the FOTY if am not mistaken or should've been, one of the best fights i've seen. Rodolfo Martinez was almost like a poor mans Carlos Zarate, he was technically very good, a textbook style with a very good set up, very good counter puncher, loved his stance the way he used to shoot of the front foot is a joy to watch, i say a poor mans Zarate not as an insult, but that his style was slighly similar and Zarate just executed it better, as their fight showed, that was a good fight to watched great seeing two very good technicain trying to figure eachother out.
Saldivar is way better than the other 2 although i really do like chiquito, he had his profile in Ring this month aswell
It's funny, Saldivar never looked like anything spectacular to me, yet he managed to put together an impressive championship run and overall a very deep resume. He unseated a highly regarded champion in Sugar Ramos, and made a very impressive comeback in beating Famechon. The only fight I felt hurt his legacy was his crushing KO loss to a nearly 40-year old Jofre. Gonzlaez was one of those fighters who always was on the cusp of greatness, but every time he was about to cross over, he would get brutally KO'd and have to rebuild his reputation all over again. That happened first when he was upset by Pascua, then he worked his way back to a megafight with Carbajal but was KO'd again. He twice beat Carbajal to settle matters with him, but right when it seemed he had the way open to him for a long and distinguished reign, he was KO'd by Sorjaturoung and retired. My memory on Martinez is a little hazzy, I tend to lose him in the shuffle of top Mexican bantams that were around at the time. I remember he won his title on a highly controversial KO, in which the ref gave him a inappropriate stoppage over Raf Herrera. It was like the lighter weight equivalent of Dokes-Weaver.
He was worse off at that stage than Jofre, regardless of age. I don't think it hinders his legacy much at all. In his prime he was a raging bull in his own right.
