Who's greater : Jose Napoles or Oscar de La Hoya ?

It is close, but I'd give that to Napoles as well.

 

Yes!! Cokes seemed, for all the world, to have a very long title reign ahead of him...a true quality fighter..he seemed to own the welters until Napoles gound him up...this was very impressive title-winning for Mantequilla.

 

DLH's a fighter who imo pretty much comes out even after his gifts/robberies are taken into account.

So going by his official wins resume let's see how it stacks up against Napoles' :


Quartey - Cokes
Whitaker - Perkins
Vargas - Griffith
Chavez - Muniz
Gonzalez - Lopez
Hernandez - Lewis
Molina - Gray
Castillejo - Menetrey
Sturm - Backus
Carr - Charles
Rivera - Pruitt
Gatti - Morgan
Ruelas - Hernandez
Campas - Urbina
Leija - Grant
Paez - Santos

I'd probably give the edge to Napoles there.

Of course, you can throw in DLH's fights with Trinidad , the second Mosley fight and a close loss to Floyd, which makes DLH's resume look quite better, but let's not forget that Napoles beat Cokes, Lewis, Lopez, Muniz, Morgan, Urbina and Pruitt on multiple occasions.

Overall I'm happy to give Mantequilla the edge.

Looking beyond the mere win column though, what i think is troubling for DLH's legacy is that he never really had a commanding performance against any of his big rivals (Chavez fight excluded). Napoles, on the other hand, had plenty over his.....

 

You say he never had a commanding performance against a rival, while exluding a commanding perfomance... against a rival?

Oscar has everything boxing fans look for in a great fighter. He won the gold medal, had a long career: winning 24 of 29 world title fights, fought in six weight classes, unified titles, got off the canvas to score victory, knocked out or outboxed tough challengers, has wins over faded legends (Chavez x2, Whitaker, Camacho), went to war with undefeated champions in Quartey and Mosley, outboxed an undefeated champion in Trinidad, knocked out rivals in Mayorga and Vargas, was 1# p4p, fighter of the year, etc. Who cares if he got beat up by Hopkins?

Not only that, but the guy is a huge success and credit to the sport. He managed himself throughout his career to make more money from boxing than any other boxer, has a record in PPV and live gate, and has donated millions to charity.

Any who says that Jose Napoles is far ahead of Oscar is purely hatin' on the Hoya.

 

The Chavez fight was a big win over a big named opponent, but Chavez' age and pre-existing cut turned that into a bit of a joke imo. Some view it as a masterful display, I don't really. It was kind of like a Pac/DLH scenario where Chavez pretty much was a cooked goose going in (in Chavez's case it was because of the cut, in DLH's it was because of the diuretics).

 

That's why I listed it as a win over a faded legend.

 

I have a short highlight of his bout with Japanese contender Yoshinori Takahashi. The bits I've seen show a Napoles/Urbina-esque overwhelming display from Perkins at the finish, although he doesn't look as refined as Napoles. Then again you can pretty much count on one hand the number of fighters that do.

 

DLH deserves the pick based on his career from 1993 to 2004 where he kicked major ass against damn good opponents between 130 to 160 pounds........ DLH was winding down after being stopped by B-Hops.... DLH is a "Haller" to the max........

STILL! Jose Napoles was great in his own right, as well......

MR.BILL:hat

 

great thread and lots of discussion but i think oscar is getting sold short. napoles, from what i've seen, lots quite good on film and i'm not familiar enough with his resume to comment on that. but oscar's skills and resume are top notch (one has to include the tito win and at least consider the second mosley fight). i don't see the difference between them being much at all, but then again i've been wrong before

 

Hes an old time fighter so of course he's greater :-(

 

Probably the best footage you'll find of him is against Paolo Rosi.

There's also his fight with Ryu Sorimachi out there and some other clips of him in action against various guys (Loi, Hubbard, Godih, Mattioli, Takahashi and maybe a few more...)