Who ranks higher at 126 lbs: Salvador Sanchez or Vicente Saldivar?

[greeh]

In my opinion, Saldivar gets almost constantly overlooked in these kinds of discussions.

I personally rank Saldivar higher. His wins over Ismael Laguna, featherweight powerhouse Sugar Ramos, Raul Rojas, underrated Howard Winstone x3, Mitsunori Seki x2, Jose Legra and Johnny Famechon is better than Sanchez' resume.

Sanchez gets little more credit than he actually deserves for his opposition in my opinion. Sure, victories over Danny Lopez, the underrated Ruben Castillo, Patrick Ford, Juan LaPorte and Pat Cowdell are all very solid, but his two best victories - Wilfredo Gomez and Azumah Nelson - isn’t better than Saldivar’s in my opinion.

Gomez was a great at 122 lbs. - but not nearly as good at featherweight, and while the victory over Azumah Nelson is a very good one, it was over an inexperienced and green version of him. Not the total package he eventually would become.

Both of them did achieve great success during short careers, but Saldivar’s better opposition and resurrection from the dead to recapture the featherweight crown seals the deal for me.

My question to you is obviously: who should be ranked higher – Sanchez or Saldivar?

[Sugar Adam Ali]

I disagree that saldivar's best wins are better than sanchez's best wins,,, i favor sanchez as having the biggest wins,, sure nelson was an unknown and it was til years later that you could look back and call it a great win..

Sanchez is like SRL to me,,, very short prime career, but did more in a brief time span than most do in their entire careers

I gotta go with sanchez on this

[Humean]

I think Sanchez was better and that his two and a half year stretch of championship fights from 1980-1982 was one of the very greatest short stretches of championship boxing in history. However Saldivar's championship stretch from 64-70 was extremely impressive as well. I think of Sanchez as being better than Saldivar so to a large extent I'd go with Sanchez on those terms. Having said that Saldivar may well have had the best wins in the history of the featherweight division.

[Scott9945]

Saldivar deserves to be rated with or above Sanchez. And I agree he is woefully underrated now. Like most fighters whose careers are cut short, Sanchez is a bit overrated.

[Tyler_Durden]

Vicente Saldivar ranks higher then Salvador Sanchez plain and simple. That's not to say that Salvador Sanchez wasn't great because he was but unfortunately his career was cut short and we can only go by what history left us with.

[IronDanHamza]

I rank Saldivar higher.

Salidivar #5, Sanchez #6.

Both great fighters.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Saldivar deserves to be rated with or above Sanchez. And I agree he is woefully underrated now. Like most fighters whose careers are cut short, Sanchez is a bit overrated.

I agree that saldivar is woefully underrated, and kinda forgotten about,,

[The Big Dunn]

I disagree that saldivar's best wins are better than sanchez's best wins,,, i favor sanchez as having the biggest wins,, sure nelson was an unknown and it was til years later that you could look back and call it a great win..

Sanchez is like SRL to me,,, very short prime career, but did more in a brief time span than most do in their entire careers

I gotta go with sanchez on this

Good post. I agree.

[BennyST]

It's amazing how rarely you hear of Saldivar these days. One of the greatest featherweights of all time, one of the greatest southpaws, and during his time, one of the most popular fighters ever.

Really only one proper loss during his time. First loss via a supposedly bad DQ, and his third loss was after a two year retirement, in which he looked shockingly bad against Jofre, before retiring again for good.

Great fighter though. His trilogy with Winstone is underrated. Winstone was a great fighter and champion himself.