The two guys generally considered the 2-3 greatest bantams in history behind Jofre. Both murderous punchers, both superb offensive technicians. Who wins?
Olivares is in good company then. Carlos Ortiz and Chavez were alcoholics too. I do agree with Zarate winning though.
I dunno if the same is true for Ortiz. He might have recovered, but he was a self-admitted alcoholic in his prime. Ortiz vs Chavez in their primes, but they have to fight in a bar with the last bottle as the prize. What a war!
Chavez is no street fighter, bro. Ortiz cleaned up in the 70's there is a wonderful black and white documentary on him I saw 35 years ago. I found out that if you take away the hangers on, the flunkies/bodyguards and the television cameras away from Chavez and get him in a one on one situation- not that I got into a fight with him because I didn't - but I told him a few things to his person regarding the Taylor and Whitaker fights: he is the smallest, quietest and meekest little Mexican you are likely to ever encounter, bro.
On a serious note, I think Ortiz would have outboxed Chavez, but don't let McDogg here that. He'll raise Hell about that opinion.
He would have had to be at his very best. Not many lightweights could take the Chavez of his Rosario era win
I may get some flack for this, but I've always been a bit leery of rating Zarate as high as that. For starters, even though he won the single biggest fight in bantam history (vs. arguably the division's biggest puncher ever), his resume outside of that wasn't particularly deep - certainly not as much as Olivares'. But perhaps an even bigger issue for me is that he basically forsook his height and reach advantages by looking to get in close to opponents and work the body. I don't think he ever fully developed his long range boxing ability to the extent that he was capable of, which is one reason he never had the same success above 118 that Olivares and Jofre had despite having more advantages than them. In fairness, he did succeed in overpowering everyone he ever fought at 118, but I question whether that approach would still be successful against the all-time best bantams.
Both Rodolfo Martinez and Davila were excellent, excellent bantams - Zarate dismantled both. Then obviously there's Zamora, and to be fair... there should be Pintor, as Zarate was robbed in that fight. Overall, Zarate's bantamweight reign was quite impressive. His style wouldn't carry as effectively as Ruben's, but I still feel that at 118 Zarate takes this.
