Quote Originally Posted by generalbulldog View Post
As for Oscar's official record then if you add in the JCC and Whitaker fights to the other 6 fights it's still 2-6 against all time greats. He lost more than he won. Yes he's an all time great for his accomplishments overall in his career, but he's not up there with Mayweather and Pacquiao or even 80s legends like Leonard the Golden boy of boxing in his day. Oscar you can say is a bigger star and has a bigger bank account, but he's not up there with them in terms of legacy or accomplishment. Just my 2 cents.
You inadvertantly revealed another problem with using the offical record. Not every fighter fights the best. Pac and PBF have never fought each other obviously whereas there was no such drama for ODLH and Trinidad. Oscar fought a red-hot prime Mosely yet the two current lb-4-lbers appeared to both wait for him to age more, with PBF retiring while Mosely was younger and PacMan waiting until he dropped down in the rankings.

I do like the metric of judging a fighter against the best, and I think you can justify denying ODLH first-ballot HOF honors on that. Indeed, I agued on anohter thread that JCC fails on that metric (lost to Sweet Pea, never fought Azumah, controversy against Meldrick, loss and controversy with Frankie Randall, etc).

But ODLH was as willing to fight anyone as any fighter in the modern era. And he did while he held all the cards, ie money and popularity. This means he had an incentive to dodge but didn't. But I guess he's paying the price for those risks.