Stanley Ketchel or Salvador Sanchez?

[Chief2ndzOnly!]

O'Brien drew with Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson in between his two fights with Ketchel. Not to mention O'Brien was waaaay better than Gomez or Nelson..but that's another debate.

While you wouldn't really know the people he was fighting, Ketchel started out as a WW, claimed the WW title in 1907, and defeated a top Heavyweight contender by 1910 when he KOed Porky Dan Flynn. Top WW to top HW in 3 years without putting on much weight is pretty impressive.

Sanchez mostly beat on smaller guys to be honest.

I wouldn't use the Jack Johnson bout for O'Brian, the newspaper reports were extremely biased in that bout compared to the eyewitness accounts. According to those who witnessed the bout Jack didn't go all out against O'Brian. The rest I can co-sign.

[Chief2ndzOnly!]

Two underrated wins for Ketchel are his KO's over twins Jack Sullivan and Mike Sullivan. Jack defeated future HW champ Tommy Burns and was regarded by Tommy Ryan as one of the best pound for pound, while Mike was a highly regarded welterweight champion.

Ketchel KO'd all the title claimants and established himself as the undisputed champion. Sanchez fought tough competition too but I would have liked to see him face the likes of Eusebio Pedroza and Alexis Arguello, not that there was much of a window for the latter match-up. Unfortunately both of their lives were cut short.

Great post. No wonder they say you should be the History Mod. Green K to follow shortly.

[TheGreatA]

Perhaps dominance should also be factored in, Ketchel KO'd almost all of his opponents while Sanchez had very close fights with Bernard Taylor, Ruben Castillo, Pat Ford & Pat Cowdell, although he defeated his best opponents Gomez, Nelson & Lopez in decisive fashion. One thing that has to be taken into account when talking about Sanchez is that he was truly a 15 round fighter, he would have probably lost or drew in some fights if not for coming on strong in round 13, 14 & 15, the true championship rounds.

[McGoorty]

In his few years of being a champ, Salvador Sanchez beat two ATGs in Wilfredo Gomez and Azumah Nelson, along with an easy HOFer Danny Lopez twice. Not to mention very tough challengers Ruben Castillo and Juan LaPorte.

Ketchel is pretty good, but I dont think his record matches up with that.
Other than Billy Papke and a fading Jack O'Brien, who exactly did Ketchel beat that makes him Salvador Sanchez level?

Well for a start, he cleaned out the MW division,..... and despite being Knocked out,... he did drop Johnson to the canvas,...... surely that is a massive plus,.. after all it's the equivalent of Sanchez putting Hagler on the seat of his pants. Having said that, I think that Salvadore had the POTENTIAL to be far greater, as for Ketchel, there wasn't much to prove at the time of his murder, and he would have had to wait till mid 1915 until another ATG Middleweight came along and by then I think the new GUN MW would have ended Stanley's champion. I don't need to name the GUN by now do I ...??????

[The_Demon]

Ketchel should rank higher imo

[McGoorty]

Danny Lopez had been a featherweight pretty much all his career, and had a number of quality title defences under his belt before fighting Sanchez. hardly 'a smaller guy'.

Azumah's lowest weight was featherweight, and apart from winning the featherweight title and defending it multiple times moved up to super featherweight and did the same thing. then went up again to lightweight and gave Pernell Whitaker a fairly difficult fight.
surely not a 'smaller guy'.

Juan LaPorte's lowest weight class was featherweight, he own a title there, and had a few successful runs at super featherweight. he even challenged for titles at 140lbs later on.
not a smaller guy.

Ruben Castillo gave Alexis arguello a hard fight at super featherweight before he even challenged Sanchez at featherweight, and had a successful run at super feather.
not a smaller guy.

the only 'smaller guy' Sanchez beat was Gomez, who was only a weight class below and went on to win a featherweight title and a super featherweight title(although he probably shouldnt havent have deserved the decision in that one).

and going from WW to HW back in those days isnt as impressive to me. look at Tommy Burns, he was HW champ and was around 170lbs for his fights. the HW division back then, in all honestly, was made up of guys that werent actually HWs or just big guys who werent too skilled. I dont even think Jack Johnson was nearly as good as most people make him out to be, based on footage and record. its not like Ketchel beat a really quality HW, he was just...meh.

his wins over O'Brien are nice enough, but even then, O'Brien was pretty much a middleweight himself in reality. and not even a year after their fights, O'brien pretty much flatlined.

personally, I would choose Sanchez's two wins over ATGs over any weight jumping Ketchel did, because I think that quality of fighters is more important than jumping weight. it might sound like Im being unfair regarding Ketchel's wins, but honestly, the man didnt beat any ATGs, did he?

how you think O'Brien is better than Wilfredo Gomez and Nelson is beyond me, honestly. Ive seen footage of O'Brien and have tried to give him credit, but cmon...
putting him side to side to guys like Wilfredo Gomez...its not close.

I appreciate your effort in making such a large post, but spare us some of that claptrap about it being 'Not Impressive for a WW to become the top HW contender crap",--And if you don't think Jack Johnson wasn't so great then your knowledge of old boxing is limited to reading statistics, but you are wasting your time if you don't know no more than say a couple of dozen guys from a century ago. What's the good of boxrec if you can't understand that, just because a name is new to you, does not mean they were C graders, it's just skimming the surface, you only do that when you want to arrive at a pre-ordained conclusion,......... You gotta start out with an open mind when venturing into a new field.