was sweet pea still a solid P4P fighter when ODLH beat him

i thought Pea won so yes

 

Nah. Pea was still one of the best fighters in the world and a p4p calibre guy, as evident in his performance against a rising star like Oscar, but he was still significantly poorer than in his heyday. Significantly. And the decline from that point was rapid. The Tito fight was hard to watch, and even the Pea of as late as '93 would have boxed rings round Trinidad.

 

He was never as good at Welter as he was at his 135 prime to begin with, and he was noticeably fading around the time of that fight, but yes, he was still without question among the best P4P in the world during his fight with DLH.

That said, I had him pulling out the fight by a point or two.

 

Forget what others say in this thread...FACT remains Pernell Whitaker was # 1 p4p when Oscar De La Hoya beat him. this signafies it is a HUGE win for oscar. anytime u bump up a weight class and beat the Ring Magazine # 1 p4p fighter in the world is a HELL OF AN ACCOMPLISHMENT

 

Agree.

:good:good:good

 

Good win for Oscar, even if I had Pea winning :good

Trinidad's victory on the other hand was a bit more shallow....Pea had started to slip then, even though he still gave a good account of himself

 

Actually, De la Hoya was the Ring no.1 at the end of 1996, so I'm guessing he would have been whilst the fight occurred as well, given his dominant performance against MAG in 1997. Can't imagine that Whitaker getting outboxed by Diosbelys Hurtado would have rocketed him back to the no.1 spot.

Roy Jones was second p4p at the end of 1996, but may have possibly dropped behind Pernell after the Montell Griffin DQ. I think I have heard someone say Jones retained the no.2 spot though.

So, Pea was either 2 or 3 p4p at the time.

Was Whitaker still a solid p4p fighter when ODLH beat him? Well, just look at his performance: Of course he was. That Whitaker would probably have beaten Ike and Tito around 1997 as well.

Whitaker had looked horrible for a good couple years before the DLH fight, but that was owing quite a bit to lifestyle issues (drugs, underestimating and undertraining for opponents etc). When he fought DLH he got all out of himself and looked as good as he had since about 1995.

Of course, Whitaker was still a significant step removed from the Chavez/McGirt days, and a couple of significant steps removed from the lightweight marvel that he was.

 

As I recall the fight could have gone either way the official scores do not indacate how close the fight was. I don't rember how I scored it the last time I watched probbly a one or two point win for Whitaker. Was he at his best? no but he was still the best around.

 

I'm sure they won't forget that accuracy is not always your strong point. :hey

 

I think 80-90% is pushing it, Whitaker was still 1 of the best p4p fighters around but IMO left his true prime yrs in the ring in the Mcgirt rematch masterclass, he never seemed the same to me from his next fight onwards - Vasquez at 154 in 1995 (possibly late 94 but Id guess 95)

Whitaker pre Vasquez outboxes DLH in a clear 7-5/8-4 UD IMO - their actual fight in 97 makes it extremely hard for me to pick Oscar vs the prime version of Pea, I just dont see it.

 

It was a good accomplishment but Oscar should never have been at those lower weights to begin with & was a decent favourite vs Whitaker because he was so big + the FACT that despite some people still having Pea as no1, everyone knew he was on the slide at 33 & that Roy Jones had likely taken the top spot.
Whitaker kept his spot thru past performances & the fact that he was still unbeaten.... I thought the DLH-Pea fight was hard to score but to me looked even, either man could have got it, great ACHIEVEMENT by DLH but not so great PERFORMANCE all things considered.

:good

 

SS already covered my thoughts, so I'd just like to chime in that it's quite an exaggeration to say that Pea was getting shut out by Hurtado. He was losing, but it was definitely not a shut out. That's ridiculous. I think Merchant and some of the announcers even had him up, but that had more to do with the fact that they disliked Hurtado's negative style against one of their favorites than anything. He was not winning that fight, and he generally looked pretty bad during it, and that time period in general as SS already pointed out.

 

Yeah, Whitaker was still right up there P4P as he was still pulling out wins prior to meeting De La Hoya. I thought he lost the fight. It was a nightmare to score at times. Not many clean punches landed by either fighter throughout the rounds. Whitaker, for the most part, seemed to be content on poking out the jab. He lacked variety IMO. Punch stats mean zero. Fights aren't scored on punch stats. Judges don't use them, so fans shouldn't use them.