Greater fighter: Emile Griffith or Carlos Ortiz

2 ATGs who were jack of all trades fighters and known for their versatility and high ring IQ. Who would you say is the greater fighter of the two in your opinion?

Emile Griffith: Luis Manuel Rodriguez, Dick Tiger, Nino Benvenuti, Joey Archer, Florentino Fernandez, Benny Paret, Gaspar Ortega, Bennie Briscoe, Ernie Lopez. Was also close to beating Carlos Monzon.

Carlos Ortiz: Flash Elorde, Ismael Laguna, Joe Brown, Duilio Loi, Sugar Ramos, Battling Torres, Kenny Lane. Also had a controversial "draw" over Nicolino Locche.

 

I say Ortiz by a slim margin.

 

Can't argue with either or honestly. Ortiz does have more HOF wins and was the more consistent fighter than Griffith. One has to imagine how much greater Griffith would be seen had he actually managed to scrape a narrow win over Monzon in the rematch.

 

Ortiz, Griffith, Ali, Jofre, Harada, Saldivar, and Tiger.

Those are the big 7 of the 60s imo. Not in any particular order, though I would probably say that independent of accomplish, Ali and Jofre were the two most special fighters of the lot.

 

I'd go with Ortiz. Just. I find it hard to see past that shocking first round loss of Griffith to Carter. There's nothing like that on Ortiz record.

 

Griffith was greater, but Ortiz was better IMO.

 

Yeah, you watch film of both, and its just extremely hard to consider Griffith better.

 

I do think that Griffith's welterweight run is insane, but it's his middleweight work which nicks it for greater IMO. Ortiz's run at 140 was very good, but not as good as Griffith's at 160. However, his two title runs at at lightweight are legendary.

Although I would say that maybe I'm bias towards Griffith, as he was one of my absolute favourites for years and the book on him is probably my favourite boxing book; well, that or Chris ' Jofre book or Smokestack Lightning. I go back and forth.

Ortiz's consistency is what would be needed to argue for him IMO, but that's perfectly fine.

 

Weird take in my view. Everyone can get caught on the chin and koed early. I fail to see how it can be assessed as anything else than a fluke considering it never happened again in a more than 100 fights careeer at the top level.

 

Yes but in this case everyone inst Carlos Ortiz...

 

There's been some fights where Griffith looked just as great on film as Ortiz. He looked really impressive against Gaspar Ortega, Toweel, Dick Tiger, Bahama,.

 

I think in my mind Ortiz would out-drink Griffith and so I would pick him

 

There's one white substance that Griffith could outdrink Ortiz in.