let's see - SRL against an over-rated and over-hyped slow as hell brawler with a below average chin? Uh, I'll go with SRL.
10 defenses of a paper title, though. He fought in a pretty good era of welterweights and somehow managed to avoid all of them until Tommy blasted him. I don't know, this fight seems like a more celebrated version of Mayweather-Gatti to me. I think X has this one nailed.
Cuevas was probably just a bit limited, lacking the variety required. In a 12 round non-title affair, Ray wins a decision. In a 15 round title fight, Ray stops him very late in the fight.
Cuevas's challengers were pretty much a solid lot... Espada, Campanino, Shields, Ranzany, Weston. Gray... thats a solid group of guys, they were all ranked contenders... outside of Palomino and Leonard, I dont see what welterweights of the time he could accurately be accused of avoiding... and the fact of the matter is that his co-champion Palomino fought essentially the same level of comp, arguably outside of the very good Armando Muniz, Palomino had the lesser challengers... 11 defenses, 10 knockouts is a fine run If Cuevas was a paper champ, so was Palomino... there were only two belts to be had at the time... I think Palomino was a fine fighter, but I dont think he would have looked a whole lot different against Tommy than Pipino did, he would have lasted a bit longer but he would have caught a terrible beating all the same To me, Cuevas's good run as a champ is better than any of Arturo Gatti's weak-link in the chain, 1/3 of a title championships, and certainly superior to where he was at when he fought Floyd Mayweather... to me, Cuevas was a far more formidable fighter, and Im not even arguing he manages much of anything against Leonard, but to me that says more about how good Leonard was than it does about how bad Cuevas was
Cuevas fought arguably the better opposition than his co-champ Palomino, they were all guys IN HIS ACTUAL WEIGHTCLASS (unlike Norris who's biggest scalps were worn out fighters who had seen their best days long before in a division south) ... Seriously, outside of Leonard (who really hit his stride towards the end of CUevas's reign anyway) and not unifying with Palomino, I dont see where anyone can accuse Cuevas of ducking or avoiding anyone an his results were emphatic at worst... at least Cuevas's run at the top was stopped by a legend in his prime... Terry Norris's was interrupted by a guy who was basically washed up, and the trouble started with a jab of all things... and nobody is trying to make Cuevas a legend, no one is suggesting he comes within a million miles of defeating Ray Leonard... people have been trying for years to turn Terry Norris's cherry-picked collection of small, used-to-be names into the work of a great fighter Cuevas's challengers are easily as good or better than Terry Norris's while he gets about 1/8 as much love from the pundits
I meant paper as in his version was the splintered portion won against a fighter who'd have never been champ if there wasn't a vacant belt available. Palomino's run wasn't much, but he was the lineal champion by virtute of beating the man (Stracey) to become the man and Stracey is far better than anyone Cuevas beat during his run. Along with Muniz, whom you already mentioned, Dave Green is no worse than just as good as anyone Cuevas ever beat, as well. I wasn't arguing, either, that Cuevas was any lesser of a fighter than Gatti. In fact, your pointing out how great Leonard was proved the point I was trying to make - that IMO, Leonard-Cuevas is a higher profile version of Mayweather-Gatti in terms of my prediction on how the fight plays out.
