Quote Originally Posted by milmascaras1 View Post
cleaning out one's division is a lost passion for today's boxers. nowadays a fighter would rather win a paper title and instead of defending that title against the number one contender, they go up in weight and pick and choose the easiest opponents.

in my opinion, i believe a fighter that cleans out his division before going up to another weight class is much more impressive than a fighter who wins a title and ducks that divisions top contenders. fighters of the past like julio cesar chavez, who holds the record for 27 title defenses and many others like sugar ray leonard, marvin hagler, salvador sanchez, bernard hopkins, shane mosley, finito lopez and countless others are looked at as legends because they fought and beat the best of their division before moving up. add oscar de la hoya to this list because along with his six division titles at least he had 17 successful title defenses which by today's standards is pretty darn impressive.
Good post Mil. De la hoya, Leonard and Hearns took full advantage of the move up in weight game. Certainly Leonard and Hearns paid their dues when fighting at a standard weight, though it was later in the game for them.