Where do you rate Roman Gonzalez at super fly/junior bantam all-time

If Choco were to upset Inoue, he would truly be one the greatest lower weight fighters ever. Can't see that happening though.

And yes, Choco is greater than Donaire. Both are first ballot HOFmers.

 

Chocolatito is a helluva fighter with a helluva resume. No doubt that he's arguably the best little man in the smaller weight divisions.

 

Why should Gonzalez move up to fight Inoue/Donaire when he could be facing the other top tier fighters in his weight division? The guy has already moved up 4 weight classes and 115 is really stacked, let him face Gallo/SSR/Ioka/Nietes/ etc.

 

He shouldn't.

The onus should be on Inoue to test himself against the elites; Choco has taken on all challenges.

I was only saying that IF Choco and Inoue were to get it on, and Choco pulled the unlikely upset, it would put him in a pretty high echelon.

As it stands right now, I still Choco is outside of the top 10 greatest Latin fighters ever, but he's definitely top 15-20.

He's also firmly the second greatest Nicaraguan fighter ever, but without a win over Inoue, he's never passing Arguello, as Alexis just dominated much better fighters.

 

Disagreed, I think Donaire-Gonzalez is one of the best matchup in boxing currently, both from a matchup and historical perspective. Honestly, I'm quite shocked that so few seems to want to see it.

And your example doesn't work since Stevenson is
A. A relative nobody who accomplished nothing
B. In a far higher weightclass ( we are talking a 3lbs , this is not a meaningful difference. In your example, it s 11 lbs even with the catch weight). Plus, Donaire as already moved up through numerous weightclass in his career. His ''starting'' weight class isn't bantamweight.
C. Chocolatito's weight jump since the start of his career is a whole unprecedented 10 lbs... Sure I get it it's more relative to his weight but I don't feel asking him to go up another 3 lbs fir a career defining superfight is unreasonable.

Btw, I'd like to see who do you think is better than Donaire on his resume ?? I don't see it at all

 

Well, don't expect the conversation to stay ''friendly'' and respectful when you imply people with different opinions are ignorant.

 

Exactly. Chocolatito had a great career, no doubt about it. But, imo, there is only one path to follow if he wants to be recognized as a truly legendary figure. And thats to supersized his happy meal and get it on at bantam

 

History will recognize him as a legend regardless. History remembers Finito Lopez as a legend, and Choco has done a fuck of a lot more than Lopez's scared to move up ass did.

If Arguello's greatness is what Choco's chasing, then yeah, go after Inoue, but there's more than Choco wanting that matchup for it to happen.

There's Inoue wanting it, and of course there's Inoue being with TR. It's not happening, but Choco shouldn't feel pressured for it happen.

 

Donaire boiling down to bantam late in his career to ko some overrated nobodies is far less compelling than gonzalez decisively beating martinez and Estrada in his last 2 fights

Zero reason for gonzalez to leave 115 to face a weight bully who spent the better part of the last decade campaigning at feather/super bantam

 

Gonzalez v Donaire? Is anyone really expecting this? I can see Gonzalez v Inoue as a more exciting matchup but like several have said, there’s plenty still going on at 115. And Gonzalez isn’t no. 1 in the division. Yet.

 

We need to more focus on how Inoue has wasted his prime. He has the weakest resume of the top 5 P4P guys.

Even Bud has fought tougher opp, overall.

 

Even though Inoue is one of my favorite current fighters I still have to admit that his opposition is pretty underwhelming. He really missed out on facing Chocolatito early on. The only thing that he has to do if he really wants to prove himself to be a legit great is to beat Donaire, become undisputed champ, and move up to face Fulton/Figueroa/Akhmadaliev/etc.

 

Fulton is with Haymon. That shit ain't happening. I would like for it happen.

 

I think best case for Choco's greatness, maybe he goes down as like the 5th greatest Latin fighter below 126, at least of the last 50 years.

He's not surpassing Gomez, Jofre, Olivares, and Canto in greatness. Whether or not he could beat Canto H2H, well that's an interesting question.

 

I agree that Choco is a greater than Donaire and shouldn't have any reason to fight him at this stage. But I still think that Donaire is a legit ATG himself. He gets shitted on too much for going up and down weight but people forget just how difficult it is to shift back down. If you can make weight then you aren't a weight bully.

 

Actually, I forgot about Morales and Barrera, but probably not even in that top 5 I mentioned.

 

I didn't do that though mate, I just called the statement itself ignorant, which it is. I've never really seen that type of thing being levelled reasonably at a fighter, the logic in this instance is just odd to me for the same reason others have pointed, so clearly I'm not on my own. I'm not bothered about you saying that people like me are the reason the best don't fight each other on account of it being a crusty dingleberry of a statement. So the feck off was mostly in amusement as I have no axe to grind with you. Your view on the matter is just a weird metric to me by which to judge a fighter in this individual case and comes across as biased and ill conceived, though that's your right as a poster and fellow fan.

 

if choco can make 10 x the money fighting donaire, then he should. but all else equal, think it would be a mistake.

 

Gonzalez hasn't decisively beaten Estrada in nine years.

 

I think it's fair to see Chocolatito has done more than those two below 126.

 

Chocolatito: I Want To Beat The Best In 115-Pound Division, Not Interested In Moving Up Or Down - Boxing News
Chocolatito: I Want To Beat The Best In 115-Pound Division, Not Interested In Moving Up Or Down

 

It definitely isn't one of the best match ups in the sport. There's a collosal size difference, and Donaire is God awful match up for him. It'd be an absolute pasting, and there's no reason for Donaire to blow a rematch with Inoue or a grudge match with Casimero. Gonzalez has about ten possible, world class match-ups at 115. I don't see how the 2nd best at one weight - arguably third - against the second best at another is one of the best match ups. Especially when one of them is way bigger.

It isn't, though. Stevenson is one of the best amateurs to come out of America in the last decade, and is an awful style for Donaire - in the same vein that Donaire is for Gonzalez. Furthermore, I didn't go off what weight they started at, I went off what weight they're best suited to. Gonzalez peaked at 108, Donaire at 118. Then I went up 10lbs. Not that hard to follow, really.

But it is unreasonable. Why should he be asked to go up another weight division? He's already in his forth. He isn't just moving up three pounds, he's moving up three pounds against a guy who rehydrates 10-15.

Than current Donaire? Estrada. Probably Cuadras, Viloria and Lightning Boy, too. TBH I'm not even convinced current Donaire is better than Martinez.

 

So Martinez at 115 (he was over the weight in fact) is better p4p than Donaire. But Gonzalez, who dominated Martinez, would get pasted by Donaire in an unfair match up because he's so much smaller (a staggering 1.6 lbs difference at the weigh in between the 2 opponents when you think about it ). This is getting a bit too much for me so we'll just agree to disagree on this one :)

 

I'd have placed Martinez higher than Donaire pound-for-pound, yes.

If you think Donaire and Martinez's size is separated by just two pounds then we have nothing to talk about.

 

Donaire would be pushing 140 lbs in the ring

 

Don t get me wrong, we all know Donaire's (who I feel, you severely underate but that's for another day) perfected boiling down in weight to an art. Still, he s not the first, nor will he be the last, to do so. In fact, his last opponent looked the same size, if not slightly bigger than him. Like it or not (and I don't, I wish the rules would be different) but those weight ''tactics'' are part of boxing and until they are, we need to go by what the scale says and not some kind of arbitrary weight we each make up. As of right now, they are officially apart by 3 lbs, a laughable difference, no matter what anyone may think the ''real'' difference is.

As boxing fans, we always state that one of boxing s biggest problem is there's far too many weight classes (me the first). So I can't understand how some of us can then turn around and accept using a 3 lbs difference to argue why a superfight should not to happen.

Furthemore, Chocolatito's been fighting at super fly for like 5 years, where he had some of his best performances. It's bordeline dishonest imo to argue he's some kind of blown up straweight on a Pacman like run through the weight classes or to claim it's unreasonable to ask him to add 3 lbs after he spent more than 5 years at the same weight class.

Anyway, we're pretty much running in circles now as it's pretty obvious we are never going to agree so I'll leave it at that

 

Is Gonzalez top 5, top 10 or lower all-time at super fly/junior bantam?

 

Not top 5. He can't officially get past Estrada, and Estrada isn't top 5 at 115.

H2H I think Choco would lose to Galaxy, Gilberto Roman, Watanabe, Moon, and Tapia if those guys were in their primes.

His best chance out of that list would be Tapia, but the pre-layoff Tapia i see beating the current Choco.

 

Estrada has accomplished more at 115 than Tapia did IMO.

Chocolatito and Rungvisai are better wins than any of Johnny's.

 

I think by the end of this era, I’d expect one of the fighters to be top 5. Galaxy, Watanabe, Gilberto Roman and Moon are the others and Tapia is probably on the cusp of top 5 but Estrada seems to me to be a legit nomination as of now.