Saldivar is quite possibly THE MOST underrated of the greats. I think he'd beat Barrera. He poses a lot of the same problems for MAB that Pac did. Saldivar didnt have the freak athleticism that Pac had, but he was a much more polished technician than Pac was at featherweight, he had a great, highly accurate straight left, and he had endless stamina.
Barrera gives a good account of himself but Saldivar is better and wins a UD, might stop him if it's 15 rounds He'd beat Morales and Marquez too
Agreed. Sad that I don't think he's ever been discussed on here before. I'd say he's second best Mexican feather of all time, behind only Sanchez.
You know what it is, I think ... he came back from his shock retirement and wasn't the same ... true, he regained his title initially but then he fell off and lost it immediately (though he lost it to a good fighter in Kuniaki Shibata) ... when people mention him at all, it's usually as a shot guy coming out of a two year retirement to face Eder Jofre in a fight that inexplicably still gets mentioned as if it were somehow a big win for Jofre ... Furthermore, Saldivar died more than 30 years ago but still long after his retirement... if he had died young and active like Sal Sanchez, he'd benefit from the halo effect but since he died 12 years after his last fight and made one comeback too many, he loses that magic of never "declining" (like all we really know of Sal Sanchez is his prime, because he died during it so there's no murky ending, no decline to cloud the legacy)... imagine if Saldivar never comes back after the last Winstone match? He'd probably be a bigger deal, discussion wise It's less of a factor, but I also think the great popularity of Ruben Olivares in the late 60s after Saldivar's initial retirement played a role... like the niche of Mexico's "main guy" for that period is firmly filled by Olivares so others kind of get lost
If I'm not mistaken, I think his third fight with Winstone drew one of the top 5 largest crowds in boxing history, to this day.
I always worry that his old legs gave out trying to chase down Floyd's limo, and as result, police on the scene were forced to put him down.
He's always off on one adventure or another, if Facebook is anything to go by ... it seems like he and his wife are always stylishly dressed in exotic locales, like some sort of husband and wife elite spy tandem... it's like Hart to Hart They're probably sipping wine in Alsace-Lorraine
