Carlos's list of wins over the likes of Charnley, Rosi, Busso, Kosaka, Bizzarro, Lane, Loi, Matthews, Torres, Lopes, Vaillant, Takayama, Presley and the like would've made him p4p number one by a mile if he'd done it in the last few years imo. It's a better list of scalps by far than what any of Lomachenko, Crawford, Alvarez, Chocolatito, Golovkin, Inoue and the like have built up. Only Usyk comes close imo. All those lads would have held titles at some point and it's an impressive gauntlet of names if you know your stuff, enough to make you the best around at any weight. And that's BEFORE you take into account that he also fucking beat atgs Old Bones, Elorde twice, Locche (if we're being honest), Sugar Ramos twice and Ismael Laguna twice. That's MENTAL. All while struggling with alcohol and lacking dedication. Truly a great, great fighter. Arguably only Leonard and Duran who are still alive who had greater careers imo with Ortiz having a decent argument for ranking higher than all of RJJ, Mayweather, Chavez, Jofre, Harada, Lewis, Zarate, Olivares, Gomez, Nelson, Benitez, Hearns etc. It's probably the saddest I've felt at a fighters passing since Arguello died.
Ortiz would put on a clinic against Tank. The gap in skill and ring IQ is too much for Davis to overcome. Fimo has a better shot but not much better. He’d get countered to death and stopped IMO. Haney gets stopped late imo. Shakur is the only one with a chance. Ryan would never take the fight.
At the end of the day, Ortiz lived to damn near 90. He probably had family surrounding him when he took his last breath. I felt more affected when Pernell died as a still younger man, on some random street intersection.
Sweet Pea’s death really hit because of how it happened. And prior to that it seemed like he was having family drama. It’s a shame.
Not to get off topic and make it about Whitaker, but I had debate on social a few months back when the question was posed "Who's the greatest athlete from Virginia?" and everyone was saying either Mike Vick or Iverson. The answer is CLEARLY Whitaker. Much much greater as a boxer than AI as a basketball player or Vick as a QB.
Back on topic, I would have liked to have seen Ortiz versus Arguello or Pryor. I think Ortiz was better suited for handling Pryor than Arguello was.
I think Ortiz would find a way to neutralise Pryor, but it'd be very hard fight. He'd be a solid favourite over Arguello at 135 IMO.
I think Ortiz was just better than both of them. Pryor in particular just makes too many mistakes for Ortiz to not capitalize on. Ortiz and Arguello have incredible ring IQs and Ortiz was just too all around. I think he outboxes Arguello clearly.
Lou Filippo, who fought Ortiz twice, was the judge who scored Leonard Vs Hagler for Hagler. This proves that when you fight Otiz, your ring IQ doubles.
