Leaving aside the US's dominance of boxing up to the 1950s and 60s, it's hard to think of a country and a weight division more synonymous than Mexico and bantamweight. When you look at the names, particularly since the 1960s, it's practically a who's who of the division so placing them in some sort of objective order is a toughie. But give it a go. Csn you put together a top 10 in order of the very best Mexicsn bantamweights in history? Here's some names for your consideration in rough chronological order. Rodolfo Casanova Baby Arizmendi Raul Macias Jose Becerra Jose Medel Jesus Pimental Chuco Castillo Ruben Olivares Rafael Herrera Romeo Anaya Rodolfo Martinez Alfonso Zamora Carlos Zarate Lupe Pintor Antonio Avelar Daniel Zaragoza Raul Perez Victor Rabanales Cruz Carbajal Rafael Marquez Johnny Gonzalez Abner Mares Leo Santa Cruz Feel free to add any more I might have left off. National identity can be slippery so if you want to include Mexican-Americans (Manuel Ortiz?) then do. Also, if you want to add junior bantamweights (Gilberto Roman?) feel free but I've restricted my list above to guys who were at least born in Mexico and either won world titles at Bantamweight or fought a significant period there.
I'm only gonna go with the ones I've seen full fights of. 1. Olivares 2. Zarate 3. Pintor 4. Herrera 5. Castillo 6. Becerra 7. Medel 8. Perez 9. Martinez 10. Pimental Roman i would consider more of a flyweight, although it gets tricky because super flyweight is often referred to as junior bantamweight. Also, that makes it tricky, because do super bantamweights count? If they do, then I would have to alter the list to fit Barrera and Morales.
Cruz Carbajal was a rough, tough fighter and can be grouped with other tough, hard hitting Mexican bantams like Nestor Garza and Juan Jose Estrada.
I would say that super bantams definitely do not count as they are above 118. Junior bantams on the other hand could count. So that might bring Roman into the conversation.
#10. Orlando Canziales #09. Jose Becerra #08. Raul Perez #07. Jose Medel #06. Carlos Zarate #05. Rafael Herrera #04. Lupe Pintor #03. Chucho Castillo #02. Manuel Ortiz #01. Ruben Olivares This would be my list based on achievements. It's literally just my bantamweight list with the non-mex/non mex-americans ripped out.
Oh shit, I forgot about my favorite guy on the whole list... Zamora. I would place Zamora at #8, right after Medel and above Perez.
