The fourth of a five-part series. We reached out to lifelong boxing insiders who have various skills and experience in the industry. In this installment: Who is the best fighter you faced in a professional fight? Who is the best fighter you saw in the gym?

Meet the panel: 

Aaron Navarro, a cutman who has worked for more than 20 years at the highest level of the sport. He is the cutman for WBC junior lightweight titleholder O’Shaquie Foster and former titleholder Regis Prograis, among many other fighters. 

Mike Rodriguez, a cutman who has worked with 29 world titleholders, including Manny Pacquiao, Katie Taylor, Julian Williams, Dmitry Bivol and Vergil Ortiz Jnr. 

AJ Jafari is one half of 3pt Management along with David Suh. Jafari’s company manages the careers of Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, John “Scrappy” Ramirez, Oleksandr Gvozdyk and Darius Fulghum. 

Roberto Diaz is the president of Sheer Sports and the former matchmaker for Golden Boy Promotions.

John Pullman is a boxing coach who currently trains women’s lightweight Stephanie Simon and flyweight Enkhmandakh Kharkhuu.

Rudy Hernandez is a boxing coach from Los Angeles, California, who currently trains two world titleholders: unified bantamweight titleholder Junto Nakatani and flyweight titleholder Anthony Olascuaga.

Jolene Mizzone is a former matchmaker who went on to be the VP for Main Events. Now, she is in her third year as a manager working with Fighters First Management. 

Pepe Reilly is a 1992 US Olympian, a former professional fighter, and a trainer at Wild Card Boxing in Los Angeles. 

Mark DeLuca is a former professional boxer who now trains fighters in Massachusetts, working with Abraham Nova, Thomas O’Toole, Francis Hogan and other up-and-coming fighters. 

Eddie Croft is a former professional boxer and is currently a trainer at his gym, B. St Boxing, in San Mateo, California.

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John Pullman: Erickson Lubin, Justin Pauldo, and Claudio Morero were all very tough to prepare for. When I trained Gerald Washington, he fought Deontay Wilder, and although he was not considered the best in terms of technical boxing skills, he had dynamite in his right hand, which you have to look out for.

The best guy I ever saw in the gym was Vasiliy Lomachenko. I had the experience and honor of spending some time with Lomachenko in camp when he was preparing to fight Guillermo Rigondeaux. I had a southpaw who was sparring with him. I have been around quite a few high-caliber fighters. He was the most impressive guy I have ever seen train. Just the way he and his father were so in-tune. They had their own way of doing things. They didn’t even need to talk much. Right to the point, everything was precise and sharp. I was just very impressed by him, and I learned a lot from watching him. 

Rudy Hernandez: I would say Floyd Mayweather was the greatest fighter I ever faced off against. Floyd dared to be great, and I didn’t think my brother [Genaro Hernandez] would beat him when he fought him. Floyd Mayweather won his first world title against my brother, and my brother was considered the best 130lber at the time. I told my brother, “You’re not going to beat him.” My brother was pissed off. “You’re a dime a dozen,” I told him, “he is going to read you. You are going to fall right into the trap.” My plan would have been to not take it to him, make him come to you. My brother insisted on wanting to fight him, and we saw what happened there. 

I saw Jose “Mantequilla” Napoles in the late 1960s. He hit a guy with a jab, and the guy had headgear on, and it busted him right open. He hit him on the eyebrow. He hit him hard. He took his headgear off, and there was blood coming down his face. I was a kid, like seven or eight years old, and I was impressed by it. 

Eddie Croft: Marco Antonio Barrera. He was great. He had speed and power. He was faster than I expected him to be. No one ever hit me that hard before and since. When he hit, I was like “My god, that is ridiculous.” We fought in the parking lot at Caesar Palace, it was on the undercard of Riddick Bowe-Evander Holyfield III. We were the co-main event. When he hit me, all I could hear was a really loud bell. Then the crowd would come back, and I would say “holy moly.”

The best fighter I saw in the gym was Mike McCallum. I was probably 8-0 and fighting in Reno, Nevada, and it is the undercard of McCallum-Toney. I was in the gym, and McCallum was in the gym before us. I watched him shadowbox and said, “My god, that is how you’re supposed to do it.” Before, I was shadowboxing and just going through the motions, getting in shape, getting warmed up. Watching him move and actually fighting somebody while he shadowboxed… He would slip, he would block, practicing footwork and being fluid. Watching him changed the way I approached training and shadowboxing in particular. 

Aaron Navarro: We have faced off against a lot of really good fighters, but off the top of my head, Bivol. We had Cedric Agnew fight Bivol on the undercard of Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev II. What is crazy about him? Bobby [Benton] and I have been against some really good guys over the years. Bivol didn’t have a ton of fights when we fought him. We watched film on him and saw he was solid, but when we got to fight night, Bobby and I saw how he was using his feet. He was using his feet to close the distance and control the range. We realized, “Shit, this guy is a lot better than we could see on video.” That is the benefit of the guys with 300 or 400 amateur fights, who can transition well into the pros, because sometimes you get 12-round amateur fighters who can’t break out of the amateur style. Bivol does a lot of small things that are hard to pick up. Cedric was a real guy. The only fight he had lost was to Sergey Kovalev. Ced was a seasoned guy with over 30 pro fights. Bivol just shut down everything he was trying to do. 

The most memorable guy I ever saw in the gym was Johnny Tapia. He was something else out of the ring. He was born to fight. He was a character and a great guy. He is always going to be one of the top fighters I have ever been around. We were around some good ones at Bobby’s dad’s old gym, and at the Heights gym, Pernell Whittaker was there. He would do things in the ring you just can’t do. He sparred with top guys and did things that nobody else could do, but he did it. Guillermo Rigondeaux’s timing was incredible in his prime. His eyes and his timing were like those of a sniper. He’d pull the trigger on his punches at just the right time.

Roberto Diaz: Vasiliy Lomachenko was special and a tremendous talent. He was an artist in the ring. I was in the corner of Jorge Linares, who was defending his world title. Linares had a very good fight with him. It was close until the end, but he got hit. 

The most memorable fighter I ever saw in the gym: Marco Antonio Barrera, having been in the gym with him while he prepared, and witnessing how hard he trained was a very eye-opening experience for me, and a memorable experience.

Pepe Reilly: That’s a good question and is really hard to answer because I grew up boxing in Los Angeles. I have been in the ring with so many world champions and Hall of Famers, including Julio Cesar Chavez, Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, and Fernando Vargas.

I spent a lot of time as a young boxer with De La Hoya in the gym, and he might be the best I have ever seen. Oscar might be the most consistent boxer I have ever seen, never losing in a sparring session, never losing rounds, never losing minutes in rounds. I watched Oscar destroy men when we were both young kids in sparring. I sparred with Oscar so many times; he was always the most difficult to figure out. 

Mark DeLuca: The greatest fighter that I’ve seen in action was Demetrius Andrade. Fighting him as an amateur and then sparring with him for many of our camps left a lasting impression. The greats make it look easy. Although he hasn’t had a star-studded career, fighting a ton of notables (timing once again), there’s no doubt that he’s a master in there. Hands down, the most noble fighter I’ve seen in the gym is Jahyae Brown. This kid’s routine is like Gennadiy Golovkin's. He shows up, shakes hands, and then gets to work. His warm-up and cool-down are longer than most sessions. He loves hard work. 

AJ Jafari: I would have to say Dmitry Bivol. My partner, David Suh, manages Giblerto “Zurdo” Ramirez, and being a part of that fight was a special event, even though we didn't get the win. Much respect to Bivol and his team, but Zurdo had outgrown the division, and as people can see, he's a full-blown cruiserweight and possible future heavyweight. So if that fight happened again at a higher weight class, the outcome would be very different. Watching “Zurdo” Ramirez prepare for fights over the years has been a true privilege. Especially watching him go through the different weight classes and to see how he trains and spars against big Heavyweights is really impressive. Watching Gervonta “Tank” Davis and David Benavidez spar was always special. And one of the best fighters I've ever seen spar and deserves to be in the Top-10 P4P list is Janibek Alimkhanuly. A very special fighter that isn’t talked about enough or gets the credit he deserves due to being avoided. 

Jolene Mizzone: I would have to say Andre Ward when he fought Sergey Kovalev. I still believe Sergey won that first fight. It was a tough fight going in for Sergey, but I always believed he would beat Ward. I don’t take anything away from Andre Ward, who is a great fighter, which made the match that much better. 

The most memorable fighter I had seen in the gym, only because I spent a lot of time down in Vero Beach, Florida, when he was training, was Arturo Gatti. He trained his ass off. He had a special team in Pat Lynch, Buddy McGirt, Mike Skorwonski, and Teddy Cruz. Honorable mention for this question is Brian Norman Jnr. I just spent 10 days with him in Japan. I got to see him in the gym every day, and he really impressed me. He is all business. For only being 24 years old, he has an old soul like the guys I saw coming up back in the day. Being a manager for only three years now, I am excited to see the new breed of fighters enter this business.

Mike Rodriguez: Having worked with several dozen world champs such as [Manny] Pacquiao, Katie Taylor, [Dmitry] Bivol, Vergil Ortiz Jnr, I would say Canelo Alvarez. His fight weekends are only second to Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya.  I've faced him three times, losses with Chavez Jnr and Jaime Mungia, and an all-time memorable win with Bivol, that was a great night against an all-time great fighter.  

As far as legacy and greatness, I’m going to say Manny Pacquiao, the only eight-division world champion and international superstar. He is still writing chapters in his book for the Hall of Fame. Special consideration to the great Katie Taylor. The only fighter I’ve worked with where random folks on the street recognized me from working her fights.