Loma vs Pedraza, your thoughts?

[Alpha]

Great posts guys

With benefit of hindsight and even though I liked Walters I think the fact he's done absolutely nothing after his lone loss says something about how 'good' he may have been in actuality. He peaked and crashed in about 2 yrs time. Good win for Loma no doubt but on his record I'd rank Russell higher. What we're realizing is that you cannot have a Loma discussion without Garcia, and vice versa. A guys record can be picked apart but it has to come down to quality of opponent case by case for me not so much where they were ranked. Also saw mention of Linares and he imo has to be foremost on Lomas record. Sure he may have been sparked earlier in career but wasn't he more than willing and ready to go with Mikey prior to Loma but it was Mikey who opted to settle on a 4th division trinket rather than a substantive division threat. If he's quality enough for Mikey to think about he's certainly quality enough for Loma to share a ring with.

I'm not saying Linares isn't a fantastic fighter, watching him fight has always been a treat.

I'm just pointing out that when Broner and Linares were both at 135 almost everyone saw Broner as the #1 in the division. If Broner had stayed focused and at 135 it would have been interesting to see how a fight between the 2 would have been viewed by fans. I also never recognised Linares as the Ring champ (see my debate about recognised #1 and 2 in another thread).

It's debatable if Linares was the #1 guy at 135. As I pointed out in another thread The Ring still rates Thurman as #1 at 147 after almost 18 months of inactivity. Mikey returned to 135 exactly 18 months after fighting above but always indicated that he wanted to return to lightweight. It could be argued Mikey was still the #1 guy. Also we can't put all the blame on Mikey for Linares fight not happening. Look at the hoops Arum made GBP jump through to get the Linares fight done.

I think that Russell Jr is Loma’s best win. Russell is a good fighter who just isn’t as rated because of his inactivity. He is a very good fighter and Loma comfortably won the fight. No excuses whatsoever.

Russell was an excellent victory. It's just that he had fought no one prior to Loma and his opposition was very weak.

The original debate was about the best fighters Loma hadn't faced in each division.

Salido was still arguably #1 at feather when Loma fought him. And although he failed to make weight, he did win the fight.

At 130 there was Berchelt, Corrales/Machado and even Salido.

And at 135 as I have pointed out, there was arguably Mikey.


Onto another point, with Mikey still talking the Spence fight, I think it should be viewed like Loma's challenging for a title in only his 2nd fight. It is a huge challenge and Mikey would be daring to be great.

I think the singular thing that helped that was Broner beating DeMarco after he had beat Linares a couple yrs earlier. That and the sheer push and visibility of a Broner who after all was at 135 for hardly a minute. I mean The Ring also had Broner ranked what..5,6 p4p in the world and that for me summed up how the once bible of boxing had fallen. The Ring may still rank Thurman #1 but respectfully you, me, nearly everyone except Thurmans closest relatives know that doesn't pass the smell test. He is a man with a division passing him by. It's an entirely different issue but you don't get rewarded for not working your house. Be it injury or lawsuits or just jumping for more shiny objects etc the division stays in motion. That's on Mikey leaving even with 'special permission' and he can't have it both ways. All that aside..you have to give Mikey 100 percent respect for Salido at the point it happened. Salido from basically the point of debuting in the U.S has facing solid competition and crushed heavily hyped Juan Ma twice and always proved a tough nut to crack. I wanna say he was actually coming on a bit v Garcia until the broken nose and the fight being stopped. Didn't he also have a broke nose?

Can I just say (because I missed it before, and Fenster mentioned it) when I say argument, I mean debate, discussion was probably the better word to use.

Some nice points there Spicoli, lets take a look:

Most would have had Broner at #1 at 135 after the DeMarco fight. I'm sure we can all agree that he would have been ahead of Linares at the time, before rising in weight.

As I have mentioned, I P4P is just mythical and too subjective to put any stock in. For anyone that may have had Linares P4P heading into the Loma fight, that's fine, they are entitled to their opinion, but I could name a handful of guys I would have rated ahead.

The reason I brought up Thurman's inactivity was to point out inconsistence with inactivity. Thurman is allowed to remain rated by The Ring after almost the exact time (at this point) as Mikey was away from 135. Mikey was active, just at a higher weight and when asked he always stated he wanted to return to 135. Could I ask why he can't have it both ways? If he moves to 147 to Fight Spence, will you consider him a full time welter? Plus fighters in the old days moving up and down quite a bit, did you consider Armstrong a full time middleweight?

I agree Salido did look to be coming on, but who knows how much the injury had to play in that. To that point tho Mikey had dropped Salido several times and was dominating.

Lets hope they can make this fight, it is one of the current super fights that can be made among top P4P guys.