What were your thoughts on this fight? Who did you want to win and who did you THINK was going to win. What did this fight do for each fighter’s legacy?
The OLDER this Bout Gets the MORE It Gets Left Off of “All Time Great Fights” Lists, Sadly…That Said, There AREN’T 10 Better in the History of Our Sport, Maybe Not Even 5 Better… Michael Carbajal was on the ‘88 Olympic Team w/Roy Jones (Riddick Bowe, Ray Mercer, Kennedy McKinney, etc.) and Literally INTRODUCED REED to the Extremely Lower Weight Classes…Prior to Carbajal, REED Didn’t Venture Below 118…At All… Never Heard of Chiquita Gonzalez Previously, So REED EXPECTED Carbajal to Dispatch of Him w/Little to No Fuss…Didn’t Take Looooong to Realize Just How OFFBASE That “Logic” Was, However… Phenomenal Fight; it Actually Got to a Point Where REED Felt Carbajal was on the Verge of LOSING But He Lived Up to the “Little Hands of Stone” Moniker and Registered One of THE Best Boxing Comebacks THIS Side of Corrales-Castillo I… ‘Preciate You Mentioning This One; REED’ll Watch it Again Over Thanksgiving Break… In Terms of LEGACY, it Brought CONSIDERABLY More Attention to the Extremely Lower Weights Than They’d Been Getting, Partly Because Carbajal was a Mexican-American, an Olympian (Back When That Actually MEANT Something in Boxing) and Because of How EPIC Carbajal-Gonzalez I Was… In a Vacuum, ALL of That Benefited the Lil’ Guys and Put Them on the American Radar… REED
I had seen a lot of Gonzalez and expected him to win by knockout. He got cut though and he had kind of lose focus when he got cut, the second Crabajal fight being an exception. For the rematch, Gonzalez was reunited with Nacho. He fought 3 tune up fights- over the weight fights but he was less than a pound over each time. I read that the objective in each fight was to throw more punches in the last round than in the first and I believe that each went the distance. I got 3:1 odds in the rematch and pretty good seats for the fight. Almost had a stroke when Gonzalez got cut again, but his conditioning was superior to where it was in the first fight.
Great fight and amazing comeback / finish from Carbajal. Just an all-action battle between 2 warriors. It's unfortunate that their other 2 fights weren't as memorable as the first.
This was and still is the biggest flyweight showdown in history. I can't remember if it was in this fight or the rematch that both flyweights made a cool million for the first time in history. And the first fight was as good as advertised.
It was the first fight. That was all part of the spectacle - unification, million dollars. the two best in their division. It was the most historically significant fight in the history of the division.
That wasn't even the greatest comeback of carbajals career. Arce was beating his ass worse every round till the ko at the very end
It’s been exactly 30 years since this amazing fight took place. Still one of the best fight to watch.
