Who Was The Greater Fighter Salvador Sanchez or Ruben Olivares

Olivares. More accomplished, and every bit as good at his best.

 

I'd lean toward Sanchez. Having such a relatively short career leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but his win over Gomez was bigger than any single one of Olivares IMO, and he was more consistent during his stay at the top.

 

Agreed.

Also, who the **** cares what Bert says?

 

I would have to say sanchez. There's more to be considered than skill set, like disipline and sanchez had much more of it than olivares. Olivares played around and partied too much and as a result lost many fights he should have won. Sanchez also possessed an iron chin whereas "rockabye rubens" chin was little more than average at best.

 

The discipline, conditioning, intelligence and consistency Sanchez brought to the table convinces me that he would clearly have come to be rated higher had he lived to retirement from the sport. Danny Lopez was at his peak and seemingly invincible when Sal dominated him twice. Sanchez ended his career by stopping Azumah Nelson in 15, a match where Sal was clearly not feeling his best. Nelson never would have beaten Sanchez, something to consider in light of Nelson's subsequent career. Sal's crushing of Gomez was one for the ages.

Sal often boxed down to the level of inferior competition, but elevated himself to an entirely different plane with Gomez and Lopez. At the time, it was commonly assumed that stepping up in weight to challenge Arguello would have been too much for him, but the shocking way he dealt with Lopez and Gomez has to be taken into consideration, and we can't forget how young he was when he died. He was clearly going to get better.

Even without the speculation on what might have been, Sal's career ending streak of ten consecutive championship wins surpasses anything Olivares did. Ruben did keep coming back from setback after setback, but Sanchez never had to.

 

I agree. It just a shame he never got to show what heights he could reach although he did accomplish so much in such a short period.

 

I disagree that Sanchez would've gotten much better, if at all, were he not to have died so young. I'd say he'd already entered his prime by that point. He started off young and peaked young. I've no clue how the rest of his career would've went, neither do any of us, but the skill-set and poise he fought with at such a young age tell me he had already hit his stride. If anything, some of his performances just prior to his death were even less impressive than his earlier ones. I think along the same lines with Sanchez as I do someone like Wilfred Benitez, though I'm not sure he'd have faded out as quickly had he not passed.

 

In a very real sense, I think he did with Gomez and Lopez. Wilfredo was thought be many experts to be virtually flawless going in against Sal, the apex predator in the sport. His best opponent actually became the quickest and most devastating win of his championship career, and Sanchez got on a multitude of magazine covers for doing it. There was little available he could do at the time to top those wins. When he died, he was as well known as anybody in boxing, and his death was headline news on ESPN.

To return to the heights he reached against Lopez and Gomez though, he needed similarly compelling opposition. A featherweight unification against Pedroza was yet another matchup many did not believe he would win, and he might well have produced another stunning escalation in his performance if that had materialized. (Sanchez was a far bigger star in America though, and didn't need Pedroza the way Pedroza needed him. He seemed to pretty much ignore his WBA counterpart.) Aside from Arguello, there didn't seem to be much else remaining for him in the way of prospective superpromotions. At the time it happened, Nelson was just another day at the office, but Azumah's later career drastically immensified the significance of their match retroactively. His career may have done the most to honor Sal's memory after his death. (LaPorte won his vacant title, but Nelson eventually proved to be his true successor.)

Shortly before Sal took Little Red's title, pundits predicted that Lopez would dominate the FW division as long as he cared to if he survived the challenge of Gomez. Otherwise, Danny was considered to have largely cleaned out the division when Sanchez came along. Because so many of Sal's defenses were competitive decisions, he actually helped revive a division which may have been on the brink of desolation and media neglect.

Rocky Lockridge was a potential challenger who might also have brought out some fire in Sanchez, and that's a prospective matchup I haven't come across much discussion about.

Bottom line is that he's far from forgotten today, and a regular topic for discussion. I'm not convinced that Olivares would have gone 4-0 against Lopez, Gomez and Nelson, although he certainly would have posted more title defense stoppages than Sal did against his lesser challengers.

 

Duodenum good post agree with everything you said,he performed to the quality of oppostion he fought(close fights with very good but not great castillo,laporte,cowdell,ford)but looked awesome against greats Lopez,Gomez and beat a future great Azumah. Olivares was brilliant but had ups and downs,sanchezs biggest down were close decisions,not losses.So even thoug sanchez career was shorter i still think hes the greater fighter

 

As great as Olivares was, Sanchez was better..he was something special..the world was denied a legend in the making.

 

I'll go with Olivares.

 

Thanks for the info, hes a fighter I'm very interested in.

 

Defo Olivares for me, simply because he lived longer. Sanchez was such a special and great operator though, a master on his night, what a ring presence.

 

Olivares, by a slim verdict, due to his longevity.