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I myself wonders...who could've beaten who?!
Boxing Comparison: Featherweight Division of the 1980's Vs the 2000 Version
By Antonio Santiago - Feb. 10, 2006
Publisher Note: RSR would like to welcome its newest writer Antonio Santiago to our team. Antonio is a historian on the sport of boxing and will bring that knowledge to his columns. Make sure to ring in with your views of his dream matches in the featherweight division.
The brain is without a question, the best computer available to humankind. Without using it, heart transplant operations would be impossible. Hollywood films would be nowhere to be seen. And the Wright brothers' dream would not have taken flight.
Dreaming is one of the best functions a human brain has. Imagine, for example, that you hit the lottery with an amount of money beyond numbers. Or that, for some reason, you can actually reach back in time, and bring your high school crush into current times to be with you.
On that same line, you can dream matchups. Baseball fans could have the 1927 Murderer's Row against the Big Red Machine. Basketball fans, the 1986 Larry Bird Boston Celtics against the 1996 Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls.
Boxing is often the sport on which fans fantasize about matchups the most: could Marvin Hagler have broken through Sugar Ray Robinson's chin of steel or viceversa? Would Julio Cesar Chavez have kept his undefeated record intact at the Lightweight division, or would he be dropped like a stone if he and Roberto Duran ever fought at 135? Those are questions that will forever hang around boxing fan's minds.
Why shouldn't we, then, go deeper into the conversation? Why, we are already talking about dream matchups, but how about a dream category? Imagine the featherweights of the 1980s against the featherweights of the 2000's?
In the Pay Per View era, it is rather easy to lose perspective of boxing and it's fighters. It wasn't so much so during the 1980's, when boxing was available for free on television, and, if a fan wanted to see the fight without commercials, the person could order a cable channel where, in addition to the fight, one could get movies all month long for a small prize. But 1980's featherweights were so deep in talent, each of them could easily give any of the featherweights of the 2000's a true run for their money. Salvador Sanchez, Azumah Nelson and Eusebio Pedroza were probably the best in their class, but you also has great fighters such as Wilfredo Gomez (briefly), Barry McGuigan, Jeff Fenech, Antonio Esparragoza, Danny Lopez, Juan Laporte, Ruben Castillo, Rocky Lockridge, Stevie Cruz, Louie Espinoza, Johnny De La Rosa, Pat Cowdell, Patrick Ford, and Jose Caba to name just a few. Theatrically speaking, we would have to include Ruben Olivares also, if only because he fought Pedroza for the WBA world title in his last fight, in June of 1980. This sounds like boxing's version of the murderer's row, doesn't it?
We would have to make the 2000's version of the division, for historical comparison purposes, the Big Red Machine of boxing. Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, Manny Pacquiao, Johnny Tapia, Naseem Hamed, Paulie Ayala, Robbie Peden, Juan Manuel Marquez, Victor Polo, Manuel Medina, Derrick Gainer, Scott Harrison, and, for gate keepers, Enrique Sanchez, are among the boxers to have made the 126 pound limit during the 2000's.
Dr. weirdo from Back to the Future, or perhaps Rufus from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, could bring their machines so that we could rescue the 1980's featherweights and bring them to the early 2000's, although Rufus' machine, a phone booth, would be more appropriate, given that he used a phone booth, and any get meetings between the aforementioned fighters could turn into phone booth wars.
Imagine the bonanzas that Don King and Bob Arum would have been able to put together had these two eras of featherweight boxing been fighting at the same weight, at the same time? Salvador Sanchez vs. Manny Pacquiao would be a barnburner. Wilfredo Gomez could try his punching power on Paulie Ayala's willing chin. For boxing purists, Eusebio Pedroza vs Naseem Hamed would have been a dandy: would the wily veteran who defended his WBA title nineteen times with solid technique be able to fend off the circus-like attacks of the speedy and powerful Hamed? How about Jeff Fenech against Marco Antonio Barrera? Azumah Nelson against Manny Pacquiao? Would Barry McGuigan melt late in his bout, the way he did against Steve Cruz, against Erik Morales, who just a few weeks ago, melted himself against Pacquiao? And how about Stevie Cruz against Enrique Sanchez in a gatekeeper matchl?
Imagine that. Imagine the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO scrambling to rank these guys on their top twenty featherweight list.
Imagine Gomez taking on Morales, Sanchez versus Barrera, Antonio Esparragoza, another great featherweight champion, fending off tough Robbie Peden. Azumah Nelson and Naseem Hamed?
The possibilities would be endless. The Featherweight division, as we speak, would be better than the Heavyweights of the 1970's or any era, for that matter. The 1970's Middleweights, not a group of clowns themselves either, would have nothing on a Featherweight division filled with fighters like these. And one has only to remember, Julio Cesar Chavez was once a budding, young Featherweight during the early 1980's himself as well.
Johnny Tapia vs. Ruben Castillo, for one, would have been a good, "free cable channel" ten rounder. Tapia was slick and he liked to brawl, but he was not at his best while at Featherweight, while Castillo fought there a good portion of his career. With Tapia's penchant for inviting fighters to punch him, and Castillo's toughness, but overrated power, this fight could go ten rounds of action, without any of the guys building a clear lead over the other. One would think Castillo would get a majority nod; however, Tapia still had that explosiveness to him that sometimes won him rounds, so it would be a must see event. J ose Caba wouldn't offer much opposition against Marco Antonio Barrera, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't be entertaining in losing to Barrera. After all, Caba took on the very best the Featherweights had to offer at his era, losing to Danny Lopez and lasting fifteen rounds with Pedroza. Talking of Lopez, it would be great to see what would happen if he landed one of his explosive rights against the chin of Naseem Hamed, who went down, it seems, an indefinite amount of times, but who had a penchant for getting up and humiliating his opponents after hitting the floor himself.
As you can see, this wouldn't be your Father's Featherweights. This division would cause a revolution in boxing, making it as hip to popular culture as television music stations or sex oriented shows. Granted, a lot of boxing fans don't like wrestling, mainly because wrestling of course is not real. However, we would not be able to help, but be hypnotized by the Wrestlemania like atmosphere most of these dream fights would bring us. The same way American and Russian citizens were kept on constant alert by the United States and Soviet governments during the cold war era: an atomic war could explode at any moment, had featherweights from the 1980's and 2000's actually fought at the same decade and against each other.
Knockouts, contrasting styles, pretty matches between excellent exponents of the sweet science, fights in which the fans do not know beforehand who would win the bout, two or three fights involving Sanchez against Morales and Barrera or Lockridge against Pacquiao.....rinnnng!!!! It's time to wake up from our dream.
If only the time clock did not exist...
Boxing Comparison: Featherweight Division of the 1980's Vs the 2000 Version
By Antonio Santiago - Feb. 10, 2006
Publisher Note: RSR would like to welcome its newest writer Antonio Santiago to our team. Antonio is a historian on the sport of boxing and will bring that knowledge to his columns. Make sure to ring in with your views of his dream matches in the featherweight division.
The brain is without a question, the best computer available to humankind. Without using it, heart transplant operations would be impossible. Hollywood films would be nowhere to be seen. And the Wright brothers' dream would not have taken flight.
Dreaming is one of the best functions a human brain has. Imagine, for example, that you hit the lottery with an amount of money beyond numbers. Or that, for some reason, you can actually reach back in time, and bring your high school crush into current times to be with you.
On that same line, you can dream matchups. Baseball fans could have the 1927 Murderer's Row against the Big Red Machine. Basketball fans, the 1986 Larry Bird Boston Celtics against the 1996 Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls.
Boxing is often the sport on which fans fantasize about matchups the most: could Marvin Hagler have broken through Sugar Ray Robinson's chin of steel or viceversa? Would Julio Cesar Chavez have kept his undefeated record intact at the Lightweight division, or would he be dropped like a stone if he and Roberto Duran ever fought at 135? Those are questions that will forever hang around boxing fan's minds.
Why shouldn't we, then, go deeper into the conversation? Why, we are already talking about dream matchups, but how about a dream category? Imagine the featherweights of the 1980s against the featherweights of the 2000's?
In the Pay Per View era, it is rather easy to lose perspective of boxing and it's fighters. It wasn't so much so during the 1980's, when boxing was available for free on television, and, if a fan wanted to see the fight without commercials, the person could order a cable channel where, in addition to the fight, one could get movies all month long for a small prize. But 1980's featherweights were so deep in talent, each of them could easily give any of the featherweights of the 2000's a true run for their money. Salvador Sanchez, Azumah Nelson and Eusebio Pedroza were probably the best in their class, but you also has great fighters such as Wilfredo Gomez (briefly), Barry McGuigan, Jeff Fenech, Antonio Esparragoza, Danny Lopez, Juan Laporte, Ruben Castillo, Rocky Lockridge, Stevie Cruz, Louie Espinoza, Johnny De La Rosa, Pat Cowdell, Patrick Ford, and Jose Caba to name just a few. Theatrically speaking, we would have to include Ruben Olivares also, if only because he fought Pedroza for the WBA world title in his last fight, in June of 1980. This sounds like boxing's version of the murderer's row, doesn't it?
We would have to make the 2000's version of the division, for historical comparison purposes, the Big Red Machine of boxing. Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, Manny Pacquiao, Johnny Tapia, Naseem Hamed, Paulie Ayala, Robbie Peden, Juan Manuel Marquez, Victor Polo, Manuel Medina, Derrick Gainer, Scott Harrison, and, for gate keepers, Enrique Sanchez, are among the boxers to have made the 126 pound limit during the 2000's.
Dr. weirdo from Back to the Future, or perhaps Rufus from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, could bring their machines so that we could rescue the 1980's featherweights and bring them to the early 2000's, although Rufus' machine, a phone booth, would be more appropriate, given that he used a phone booth, and any get meetings between the aforementioned fighters could turn into phone booth wars.
Imagine the bonanzas that Don King and Bob Arum would have been able to put together had these two eras of featherweight boxing been fighting at the same weight, at the same time? Salvador Sanchez vs. Manny Pacquiao would be a barnburner. Wilfredo Gomez could try his punching power on Paulie Ayala's willing chin. For boxing purists, Eusebio Pedroza vs Naseem Hamed would have been a dandy: would the wily veteran who defended his WBA title nineteen times with solid technique be able to fend off the circus-like attacks of the speedy and powerful Hamed? How about Jeff Fenech against Marco Antonio Barrera? Azumah Nelson against Manny Pacquiao? Would Barry McGuigan melt late in his bout, the way he did against Steve Cruz, against Erik Morales, who just a few weeks ago, melted himself against Pacquiao? And how about Stevie Cruz against Enrique Sanchez in a gatekeeper matchl?
Imagine that. Imagine the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO scrambling to rank these guys on their top twenty featherweight list.
Imagine Gomez taking on Morales, Sanchez versus Barrera, Antonio Esparragoza, another great featherweight champion, fending off tough Robbie Peden. Azumah Nelson and Naseem Hamed?
The possibilities would be endless. The Featherweight division, as we speak, would be better than the Heavyweights of the 1970's or any era, for that matter. The 1970's Middleweights, not a group of clowns themselves either, would have nothing on a Featherweight division filled with fighters like these. And one has only to remember, Julio Cesar Chavez was once a budding, young Featherweight during the early 1980's himself as well.
Johnny Tapia vs. Ruben Castillo, for one, would have been a good, "free cable channel" ten rounder. Tapia was slick and he liked to brawl, but he was not at his best while at Featherweight, while Castillo fought there a good portion of his career. With Tapia's penchant for inviting fighters to punch him, and Castillo's toughness, but overrated power, this fight could go ten rounds of action, without any of the guys building a clear lead over the other. One would think Castillo would get a majority nod; however, Tapia still had that explosiveness to him that sometimes won him rounds, so it would be a must see event. J ose Caba wouldn't offer much opposition against Marco Antonio Barrera, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't be entertaining in losing to Barrera. After all, Caba took on the very best the Featherweights had to offer at his era, losing to Danny Lopez and lasting fifteen rounds with Pedroza. Talking of Lopez, it would be great to see what would happen if he landed one of his explosive rights against the chin of Naseem Hamed, who went down, it seems, an indefinite amount of times, but who had a penchant for getting up and humiliating his opponents after hitting the floor himself.
As you can see, this wouldn't be your Father's Featherweights. This division would cause a revolution in boxing, making it as hip to popular culture as television music stations or sex oriented shows. Granted, a lot of boxing fans don't like wrestling, mainly because wrestling of course is not real. However, we would not be able to help, but be hypnotized by the Wrestlemania like atmosphere most of these dream fights would bring us. The same way American and Russian citizens were kept on constant alert by the United States and Soviet governments during the cold war era: an atomic war could explode at any moment, had featherweights from the 1980's and 2000's actually fought at the same decade and against each other.
Knockouts, contrasting styles, pretty matches between excellent exponents of the sweet science, fights in which the fans do not know beforehand who would win the bout, two or three fights involving Sanchez against Morales and Barrera or Lockridge against Pacquiao.....rinnnng!!!! It's time to wake up from our dream.
If only the time clock did not exist...