One seen by many as a top 5 all time welterweight, the other seen by many as a top 5 all time lightweight - who was greater/better? My personal opinion is that Ortiz was greater - just a deeper resume of significant wins. Better is tough to say. Napoles was the more dynamic talent, but Carlos IMO was more complete and less flawed. Ortiz on his game had literally no big weaknesses. Napoles had his bad skin. So I'm tempted to say Carlos for both.
Who would you say was better? I dont think there's a wrong answer either way in better. I think Ortiz stacks up more favorably to the great lightweights than Nap does the great welterweights. I would take Duran over Ortiz with confidence, but every other lightweight in history I think Ortiz is either close to even money, or should be favored against. Whereas, with Nap, to be quite frank I cant see him beating Robinson, Leonard, Hearns, Gavilan.
Who would you take at 140, X? Given both of them had significant fights at that weight, a H2H there is intriguing.
Ortiz was greater, but Napoles was better and would win at 140. And TBH, the only reason I don't give Napoles a great shot vs Leonard, Hearns, Robinson etc; is his size. I pick Nap to almost beat everyone at 140. If he were the same size as Robinson, I'd give him a much better chance of pulling that off than I do Ortiz vs Duran.
I have Napoles for both. The “better” is obviously based on his dominant Welterweight reign. This despite being only marginally bigger than Ortiz, if at all. Ortiz didn’t have that kind of dominance at Lightweight or Lt. Welter, where Napoles never got his shot to begin with. Bonus points for sustaining his reign despite not being given a title shot until he was already at an advanced age. He was 29 years old with 60+ fights in over a decade as a pro. Ortiz won his last title fight at 30, for perspective. Honestly the “greater” portion is mainly to do with all that as well. Ortiz does have a deeper list of names on his wins ledger, no doubt (though there’s nothing between them at the top). Which means Napoles’ greater consistency in their respective primes could easily be attributed to a less demanding schedule. I tend to think that’s more or less evened out by virtue of him facing consistently bigger opponents in his title reign, but it’s not something I’d be willing to go to war over. In fact I’d probably side with Ortiz narrowly on the matter of opposition.
