Why Omar Narvaez is so underrated ?

His competition.

Incredible stats in world strap fights, but very few Ring ranked fighters beaten.

A fine example of how it's possible to hold onto a strap for a long reign, mostly without beating truly world class fighters.

 

He was a good champion, but can You be considered as a great if You never fought a top 5 type opponent in Your career?

Stats are very useful tool to assess athlethe's greatness in sports with more clear structure of competition. In individual sports the example can be Tenis. All top competitiors - if healthy - always meet and compete together in every Grand Slam tournament. You can then assume that a player that won X Grand Slam tournaments beat the best of his time that many times, in all likelyhood (There still can be some asterisks in case of injuries, or bans of other top competitors, but You get the point).

Boxing is more decentralised and loosely organised. Champions can pick and chose their opponents. Technically it's only from top 15 in the given governing body's ratings, but I have no doubt that They often put some less qualified competitors there to make things a bit easier for the champion and to not put too much pressure on him, if They have a good relationship with him.
For that reason, in boxing the stats itself can be very misleading if You want to assess the fighter's career.

One thing I'll disagree with @Greg Price99 a bit is, I think Narvaez was a world class fighter in his prime. Whatever the case was, He never proved it in the ring, with elite opponents - so that answers the question on "Why he is never cited among the best Flyweight / Super Flyweight in history".

 

Fine post, mate.

Btw, I absolutely think Narvaez was world class. I wrote that he was a long reigning titlest mostly without beating world class opponents. Omar himself was unquestionably world class, imo.

 

He got totally outclassed by Donaire and wasn't fighting the best guys. Inoue fanboys like to hype him in their quest to find credible opponents who Inoue beat not named Fulton and Donaire, but he never was that guy.

 

@IntentionalButt this thread seems quite up your street, you're probably the biggest Narvaez fan on the site and know the contenders he beat better than most from what I've read.

 

I'm sorry Greg, I misred the final portion of Your post. No argument from me then, spot on!

 

Ha, Dario Azuaga. You're too caught up with shiny numbers, mate. Dario Azuaga was club fighter level opponent. Hiroyuki Kudaka with his 50/50 record was much better fighter than him - and a more meaningful victory for Narvaez.
Felipe Orucuta was a solid contender, I might have that wrong but I think He came into Argentina with Nacho Bernstein and was certainly well prepared, coming with a lot of pressure and volume. Narvaez beating him at that stage of his career - when He might've been 40 years old or close to it - was pretty impressive to me.
Nicaraguan Adonis Rivas was a good fighter also. Carlos Tamara went on to score major win against Brian Viloria shortly after Narvaez dominated him. Those guys should probably be mentioned among Narvaez's top wins.

When was this fight talked about, do You remember? Was it at Flyweight, or a bit later on, at Super-Fly?

 

No worries, mate, no apology necessary, easily done.

 

Yup, it's not exactly a win resume up there with the ATG Super Flyweights, let alone ATG Flyweights, is it?

 

Added to what has already been said here about his poor competition, the WBO title wasn't a "world title" for a a sizable portion of his early reign.

Narvaez never fought his way to the top of any class, he merely got their through attrition. And although I do think he was a darn good fighter, his level was apparent when he fought truly elite opposition. He basically fought to survive against Donaire and we saw what happened against Inoue.

He's one of the many examples of why face-value stats are overrated in boxing and, frankly, why there are too many titles and divisions. In a bygone era, he would have been a solid flyweight contender. In modern boxing, he gets to be a "two-weight champion" who has nearly as many title fights as Julio Cesar Chavez.

 

Dario Azuaga?? Are you having a laugh?

Sure Narvaez resume is on the weak side but with that said Azuaga isn't even in his top 10 wins

What made you name him of all people? That's so weird.