Better/Greater: Donaire or Chocolatito

Who?

 

Id take donaire for both

 

Donaire. Choco doesn't have the real emphatic, destructive, annihilation type wins in big fights the way Donaire has over Darchinyan and Montiel.

If we compare him to the Latin greats, Choco is excellent, but he's not generational like a Duran, Chavez, Arguello, Gomez, ect.

 

I completely disagree. Chocolatito emphatically won his first title in a performance just as impressive as Donaire's IMO. He annihilated and permanently retired Niida. Furthermore, I'd argue that while the win over Viloria wasn't quite as emphatic as Donaire's over Montiel, it was much more impressive. Viloria was just a flat out better fighter than Montiel, who wasn't much more than a one-win wonder. Decent SFW, but nothing special. Viloria, even by that point, was a much better fightr IMO.

I think Roman's résumé is either better, or at least equal, but his moving up weight is more impressive because he hasn't got the same height and reach as Roberto Duran.

Better could go either way IMO, as Chocolatito was an excellent pressure fighter and technician, and supremely talented, whereas Donaire was a freakish athlete who was supremely skilled. Donaire is definitely tougher, but has worse losses.

 

Chocolatito for me, he had an all-round game where as Donaire could be made to look inept if forced to lead. Donaire was maybe more dynamic but if I had to bet on one of them to win a big fight to save my life it'd be Chocolatito.

 

Choco definitely better.

 

I think comparing them at flyweight is best. How do they do vs other greats? I tend to think that it completely depends on style. Donaire would look like a killer vs Borkhorsor, but Busstop would walk straight through Chocolatito and represents an even more horrible match-up than Rungvisai did. Whereas it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel for Donaire. But if you put Donaire in there with a superb mover - like say, Chitalada - he'd look pretty horrible, whereas Chocolatito would be in his element.

Some good match-ups though.

Donaire/Gonzalez vs Too Sharp? Arbachakov? Wonjongkam? Even going back a bit, vs Laciar.

 

Face to face at flyweight, im pretty sure Donaire crushes him like a bug. Not too fair of a matchup obviously since Donaire is a much bigger man.

 

Donaire would 100% stop Choco at 112. Far too big and powerful.

 

Choco beats Arbachakov imo. Yuri was very good, and fun to watch, but not on the level of any great. And Choco and Donaire are greats.

 

Gonzalez for both imo. Definitely greater. The gap is smaller for better but still in favour of Gonzalez. Just a bit more of a polished skill set and expansive talent level.

I like Donaire a lot but thought he was heavily overrated in his earlier days. Fast, very good power, good form and reactive counterpunching ability but a few notable holes in his game nonetheless. I find him hard to rate and evaluate overall, he's a bit like Pac to me in that the weight jumping gets him brownie points but his h2h ability and cv at each weight is harder to quantify. I don't know that I'd consider him great. Definitely at least in the category just below which I sort of think of as genuinely excellent. A bit like Mosley, Tszyu etc.

 

Well, I cant agree with Shane and Tszyu being grouped into the same category. Mosley was a level above Tszyu - in both quality and resume.

Donaire is probably closer to Shane than Tszyu.

 

It's just a very vague grouping in my head with it's own sub levels and tiers tbh, X. A lot of room for manoeuvre so to speak. Its a probably minimum level for Donaire in my head but I don't really rank or rate fighters with any great analysis or strict criteria. It bores the tits off me if I'm honest.

 

Not only does Donaire dwarf Gonzalez, outgun him in every physical sense and have the perfect style to time the rhythmic assaults aggression of Choco, but even his best punch is the one Gonzalez seemed weakest to. I remember something around the Estrada rematch about how that was the punch which Estrada used to the best success. Stepping off and firing that left hook in. I love Estrada, but he isn't even close to Donaire in those aspects.

I've always found Donaire to be one of those guys whose physical impressiveness potentially overshadowes some of the stylistic difficulties be could face. He was extremely agile, very explosive, and had very, very good timing. Being genuinely tough as fuck, and being fucking gargantuan for the weight just adds to his list of monstrous physical attributes. However, his inability to cut the ring off has led to some disastrous losses. He should never have lost to Magdaleno. The loss to Rigondeaux was bad too, given its nature. Donaire just never seemed comfortable coming forward, and didn't ever seem to enjoy working off the front foot. Showing him angles and being ultimately, negative and irregular, just threw Donaire off everything. Whereas coming straight at him, whether you were off beat or upright, just gave him exactly what he wanted.

Chocolatito vs Arbachakov is a dream fight for me. Gonzalez was such a monster, but Arbachakov was a truly awesome technician with a very potent offense. I do think Gonzalez is too good for Yuri Boy, but the exchanges would be so fun to watch. Both were extremely smooth and fluid punchers.

Not to derail the debate, but I think it's perfectly fair to pool Mosley and Tzysu together.

 

Not fair at all to to group Mosley in with Tszyu. Shane's resume shits on Tszyu's and Shane was a better fighter.

It can be put as simply as this... Mosley is never in a million years losing to Vince Philips, and Tszyu never beats DLH and Margarito.

These two were contemporaries for Christ sake. They peaked in the exact same years.

No one on planet Earth believed that Tszyu was on Mosley's level circa 00-01.

We could only retrospectively look back and say Tszyu was on the same level had he gotten more done in his later years, but it was Mosley who was far more successful past his prime.

Mosley gets far too much disrespect. He wasn't Ray Leonard, but he was a HELLUVA lot better than Kostya Tszyu.

Only thing you can say was Tszyu was technically more skilled. That's overshadowed by the fact that Mosley was more talented, and a lot tougher... physically tougher, and more heart.

Mosley would have beaten the fuck outta Tszyu had they faced off circa 99.

 

Mosley was much better than Tszyu. I dont think its even debatable

 

Tszyu is a guy who should debated in terms of quality and greatness along with Hamed. And that isn't even an insult - it's not like Hamed was a fraud.

Both he and Tszyu were excellent, HOF level fighters.

But I think Mosley deserves to be considered a class higher than guys like Hamed and Tszyu.

 

I literally said I didn't want to derail anything. Don't piss your pants coz I don't suck off your favourite.

 

I wish I'd not said owt now.

 

Do you mean, I wish I ant said owt now?

 

Tszyu and Mosely is another debate (and yeah, a legitimate one)but not one I'm interested in at this moment. It's fine to consider Mosley better. Sufficing to say I've seen Shanes career in depth, and there's plenty of mud you can sling at him from a certain point of view if you're going to do the same to Tszyu. End of chat from my end on that.

With Donaire it goes without saying that he excelled more against aggression than movement and was very dangerous in that sense, even though he needed fighters to leave gaps for him imo rather than creating them (and he generally only needed small gaps to capitalize tbf). George is right that his incredible physicality overcompensated for other shortcomings. I just tend to think that he didn't really beat many/any good aggressive fighters outside of old man Nishioka and slick Vic (and giving Inoue a playful when old himself) to see how he'd fare in a higher end skilled firefight against someone hard enough to take stuff they might not see coming and reply with more than like for like. He's still a genuinely top fighter with a notable career behind him, and the late renaissance has been good to watch.

 

That sounds crass and unseemly George.

 

Though if I still lived in Barnsley you'd be bang right. Sorry, reyt. This conversation must look mental to the outsiders and foreign folk.

 

I think that's just a nice round statement to sum up all Manchester dialect.

 

Watch yourself, kid. Shane isn't even close to one of my favorites. I've always been impartial about him. Just stating facts.

 

you are not impartial when it comes to Mosley. he has always been one of your faves. Which is fine. Just telling it like it is.

 

Can you all stop talking about Shane fucking Mosley?

 

Always been one of my favorites??? Lmao!!!!! Who do you think coined the nickname "Sugarless" Shane in early 00s? It was me! Sly and I used to refer to him as Sugarless Shane, and if I recall, Everlast called him Splenda Shane.

I was a Mosley "hater" for many years.

 

I'm done now. Just had to correct Doub's fallacy.

 

Anyway....

Is there any physical advantage Chocolatito holds over Donaire, P4P?