And Gamez prevailed by seventh-round knockout, becoming only the sixth boxer ever to win major titles in four weight classes.

Get a load of the five names who pulled off this achievement before him: Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Pernell Whitaker and Oscar De La Hoya.

Absolute boxing royalty.

Then along comes Gamez, the “Little Bull.”

The next four to do it after him? Roy Jones, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Erik Morales.

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn’t belong.

Gamez, who retired from boxing in 2005, has had his name on the International Boxing Hall of Fame ballot since 2014. It remains there today, one of 42 ex-fighters for the electorate to choose among in the voting that concludes October 31.

And, no disrespect intended, but, despite his historic four-division accomplishment, Gamez will not receive a moment of consideration from me, and has absolutely no realistic chance of ever getting voted in as part of the “modern” category.

Surely you’ve heard some version of the saying, “the man makes the title, the title doesn’t make the man,” as it pertains to our sport being overrun with so-called champions of the world. Well, to an extent, the man makes the title-winning accomplishment historic. And Gamez — again, no disrespect intended — un-made the historic nature of winning belts in four weight classes.

He showed that you didn’t necessarily need to be an all-time great fighter to do it — at least not by the time the 2000s arrived and the proliferation of alphabet belts had spun fully out of control.

There was a reason nobody became a four-division champ before Hearns, as prior to the 1980s, across all those decades when there were at most two world titles up for grabs in a given division and there were fewer divisions — not many of them separated by as little as three pounds — it was a borderline inconceivable feat.

Starting with Hearns amid the expansion of belts and divisions in the ‘80s, it became conceivable.

And eventually, it became commonplace — beginning with that Gamez-Todaka tipping point.

Don’t get me wrong; several of the fighters who’ve managed it post-Gamez are true greats enshrined (or sure to be enshrined someday) in Canastota, like Juan Manuel Marquez, Nonito Donaire, Miguel Cotto, Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Naoya Inoue and Terence Crawford.

But several others are Hall of Fame longshots, like Jorge Arce, Mikey Garcia and Leo Santa Cruz.

And then there’s the one that really scrapes all the shine off being able to brag that you won titles in four divisions: Adrien Broner. If Broner could do it, winning his assorted versions of belts against the quartet of Vicente Rodriguez, Antonio DeMarco, Paulie Malignaggi and Khabib Allakhverdiev, then capturing boxing titles in four divisions must be approaching “getting 200 points for spelling your own name correctly on the SATs” territory.

The important lesson to take from all of this is that we need to look beyond the numbers to determine true greatness in boxing.

Long-reigning super middleweight beltholder Sven Ottke of Germany would appear to have all the numbers you could possibly want: a perfect record of 34 wins and no losses, plus 21 consecutive successful title defenses, tied with first-ballot Hall of Famer Joe Calzaghe for the division record.

But if you go beyond the numbers, if you were paying attention during Ottke’s career, you know he fought a handful of good opponents but no great ones, made no effort to unify or prove he was the best at 168lbs and on a couple of occasions only retained the zero on the end of his record with the assistance of some suspect home-country judging.

Ottke, like Gamez, was a fine fighter, but one who proves numbers alone are hollow in boxing, especially in the so-called “four-belt era.” Being a titlist or a beltholder is not the same as being the true champion of the world, and being a titlist or beltholder for an extraordinary length of time or across an extraordinary breadth of weight divisions does not automatically make you an all-time great.

Ottke has been on that Hall of Fame ballot even longer than Gamez. And they’ll remain on that ballot together until the Hall of Fame’s rules for being nominated change or until the hamlet of Canastota breaks off into the ocean. (I know, I know, the shores of the Atlantic are about 250 miles from Canastota … for now.)

Let’s look more closely at Gamez’s career and how he managed to win titles in four weight classes.

It is not a coincidence that all four of his reigns were of the WBA variety. The WBA, you see, is an organization headquartered in Venezuela. It’s reasonable to wonder if Gamez would have gotten as many WBA title opportunities as he did if he’d been from any other country.

Gamez was a perfect 16-0 when he fought for a title for the first time, narrowly outpointing Bong-Jun Kim in 1988 for the vacant WBA minimumweight title. He made one defense, spent time on the shelf due to injury, and eventually vacated his belt and moved up in weight.

In 1990, he challenged Myung-Woo Yuh — a 2013 IBHOF inductee — for the WBA light flyweight title, losing by controversial split decision in Seoul, South Korea. Gamez lost the immediate rematch without controversy, took nearly a year off from boxing and then challenged Yong-Kang Kim for the WBA’s flyweight title in 1991, only to lose another close decision.

Gamez stayed active and got another title shot in 1993 — going back down to light flyweight and again winning a vacant WBA title, stopping Shiro Yahiro in the ninth round.

The Venezuelan went 2-0-1 in his first three defenses before surrendering the belt in his fourth, against Hi-Yong Choi in 1995.

In ’96, Gamez got a shot at Saen Sor Ploenchit (a.k.a. Somsai Chertchai) for the WBA flyweight strap, but lost by split decision. After one more defeat, Gamez took two years off from boxing, then returned and, at age 35, fighting on the Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield I undercard at Madison Square Garden in 1999, claimed a title in his third division, knocking out Hugo Soto in the third round. (Not that you asked, but I was in the building for that one. So I am writing this column from the elevated perspective of a man who has seen Leo Gamez fight live and was a witness to history.)

Gamez was stopped six months later by Sornpichai Kratingdaengym in his first defense.

In his next fight, 25 years ago today, he challenged Todaka at 115 lbs and became a four-division beltholder. Gamez lost that title to Celes Kobayashi in his first defense, later challenged unsuccessfully for a bantamweight belt (the WBA’s, obvi), lost in a couple more attempts at “interim” bantam titles and retired at age 42 with a record of 35-12-1 (26 KOs).

Yes, Gamez won titles in four weight classes, a rare feat at the time, but not so rare anymore, as he’s one of 24 male boxers to have done so. Two of those four titles won were vacant — still an accomplishment, but diminished slightly by the fact that Gamez didn’t need to dethrone a reigning titlist.

In total, he posted a record of 7-8-1 in title fights. If you count interim title fights, that record changes to 8-10-1.

Let me say for the third time that I mean no disrespect to Gamez, a quality fighter in his day, but it’s tough to make the case that a boxer with a losing record in title fights belongs in the Hall of Fame.

Gamez got a hell of a lot of opportunities — all from one alphabet body with which the Little Bull shared a home country — and prevailed in four of them. It’s not a meaningless accomplishment. But it’s a lot less meaningful than it appears on paper.

And Gamez, through no fault of his own, represented the point at which winning titles in four divisions stopped serving as certification of a boxer’s greatness, and instead began serving as proof that times had changed.

Gamez’s reward for making history is to have his name on the Hall of Fame ballot, an honor bestowed upon every retired and eligible four-weight titlist to date.

And that’s as far as the reward will go for him.

Because there’s much more to boxing immortality than numbers.

Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.