Who do you rank higher all-time pound-for-pound: NASEEM HAMED or FERNANDO VARGAS?

technical abilities are only one facet of being a great fighter. Some people seem to consistantly forget that. Raw power and speed are abilities like any other. Noone was saying that Hamed was a masterful technical fighter anyways.

Hamed is a great fighter, despite the fact that he had technical flaws. Some people have trouble understanding that.

like it or not, when he fought Barrera, he was not at his best. Barrera was definately at his peak.

 

Hamed was a world champ for SIX YEARS! He beat EVERY major belt holder in his division: The Prince for me.

 

hamed and Vargas were truly outstanding fighters. Both could have accomplished far more in there respective careers with better management as well. Hard to seperate absolutely and this is why im not even going to vote as i can't really make a decision.

One problem I do have with any descussions pertaining to Hameds career is his fight with MAB. MAB was one of the greatest fighters of his time so losing to him in the fashion he did is understandable. Also people always refer to the fight as Hamed getting completely beaten up. That just isn't the case Hamed kept it relatively close and while it was a very clear decision for MAB its not as though he was thouroughly dominated ala Lacy/Calzaghe or Peter/V Klit.

 

Seems a pretty close run thing, I can't get either in a top 100.

Vargas has probably got Wright and Quartey who wasn't looking in great form as his stand outs and then Marquez, Castillejo and Campas as solid victories.

Compared to Johnson, Kelley, Medina, Vazquez, Robinson, Ingle.

Looking at that Vargas has better stand out victories, but I like Hamed's depth of wins. Marquez and Castillejo are a pretty weak second tier of scalps and below that there is zilch.

Also we have to consider Hamed lost his only fight against an elite, whereas Vargas lost a great percentage of his but at least fought them. I suppose it mainly comes down to whether you like Vargas's win over Wright and his competition level, or whether you prefer Hamed's destructive and eye catching reign at featherweight prior to meeting MAB.

 

its a close call anyway you chop it up! my money would be on Naz if he'd had tried to take at least one more credible fight after MAB, othewise its gotta be Vargas.

 

Naz and it's not even close.

 

Hamed literally won everything and beat everyone for a period of time. He lost to one great fighter. Fernandos career was defined by losing to elite small men. Hamed wouldn't lose to men so much below him. Hamed himself was naturally a smaller man then the weight in which he made his name out. He just didn't like training like Fernando.

 

Prime Naz was more dominant than Prime Vargas. He was a savage puncher for the weight and had a trademark style. Vargas had skills, had good punching power, and fought some very, very good guys.

Hamed lost once, admittedly might had lost had he mixed in similar opposition after that fight. But it was clearly a different fighter. Vargas lost when he was absolute prime imo.I.e Hamed in his prime was a harder fighter to beat than Vargas was. However, of course, Vargas fought some fantastic fighters, whereas Hamed fought the only decent guys for him to fight at the time.

Both a case of what if's and I can see arguments for either fighter, but due to personal bias, that I will be truthful about, I'll go for Hamed.

 

What I was trying to say, only better!

 

who really cares, they were both overrated creations of their promoters hype machines.

Hamed at least was an interesting character, but I couldn't believe at the time that people considered him a pound for pound type fighter, he was fun to watch but never on a high technical level.

Vargas is just an idiot as far as I'm concerned. He was exposed as soon as he stepped up in class and only gave de la hoya a good fight because he was juiced up. I think that the oscar fight was the only one he ever went into actually looking like a trained, in shape fighter.

Anyways my point is that neither of these guys are worthy of even having a pound for pound discussion about.

 

Hamed had P4P power at least. And at the time was beating a succession of ranked opponents and winning every title in the division. His style was awkward, and he was a switch hitter who picked his shots and took out even granite-chinned fighters...he was no mindless slugger, and a definite talent, and was as high as no.6 in The Ring's P4P rankings.

So, yes, he is worth talking about in a P4P sense, simply because he has a punchers chance against pretty much every FW in history, a few exceptions obviously (Salvador Sanchez being one, no one stops that man at FW, a few others as well of course)

 

you're right about him having p4p power, and that he'd have a punchers chance against most fighters, but that doesn't put him on the same level as the elites.

Lacy had a punchers chance against calzaghe, Tyson did against Lewis, ruiz did against jones(because of the size difference) and countless others. But when a fighter is technically outclassed that punchers chance becomes no chance.

Marquez, Morales, and Pacquiao would all have taken hamed to school just like barrera did.

 

No way did Lacy have a punchers chance against Calzaghe. People thought that at the time, but looking back on it, do you really think Lacy could've K.O'd Calzaghe with a barrage, let alone one shot???

Barrera won a clear decision over Hamed but never decked him, which lesser fighters had managed to do (except from the turnbuckle incident) and won on PTS, a wide decision because Barrera ran away with it at the end.

He also changed his style completely, knowing that he would have got K.O'd had to stood toe-to-toe. This shows what a GREAT fighter Barrera was.

An Ingle-trained Naz was a different beast to what Barrera fought that night. He was adaptable, that Naz was not in great shape, in his mindset or physically.

And to the guy who said Bungu was only a SBW, what was Naz then? Watch the fight, Bungu looks much bigger than Naz.

 

Thats exactly what I meant with the Lacy punchers chance, sure he could throw a left hook hard enough to knock out anybody in the division, but there was no way he was going to land that shot.

Sorry to get so far off topic btw.

 

No, that's not what I was saying. Even if lacy has landed his best shot, I seriously doubt it would've sparked Calzaghe. Lacy isn't the big puncher everyone thought he was.