The Top 50 featherweights ever - No 2, Salvador Sanchez

Salvador Sanchez should have been the greatest featherweight of all time. As it was, he came very close.
The top two names in this list had remarkably different careers. One had a professional career that lasted 26 years, the other was dead at 23. The car crash that took Sanchez's life, took away one of the sports greatest ever talents.

The is little doubt as to Sanchez's class. He won the WBC featherweight title just seven days after his 21st birthday and defended it successfully ten times. He not only beat two boxers in the all-time top ten featherweights - Wilfredo Gomez and Azumah Nelson (pictured) - he stopped them, as well as another from the top 20, Danny Lopez, twice. Such is the stuff of legends.

Not just a powerful fighter, Sanchez had all-round talents. "I am an intelligent boxer who changes depending on my opponent," he said. Indeed, when he beat Lopez in his second fight, some said he bobed and weaved like Willie Pep.

Sanchez had a very busy career for one who died so young. He had his first professional bout when he was 16 and had racked up a record of 25-1-1 by the time he turned 20. Among his victims as he moved into title contention was one Felix Trinidad, the father and trainer of the legendary welterweight and middleweight champion.

The dawn of the Eighties saw Sanchez emerge as a star. He was little known in the United States when he challenged Lopez for the WBC title in Phoenix, but gave him a real beating, stopping "Little Red" in the thirteenth round of a one-sided fight. He saw off Ruben Castillo in his first defence, three months later, before beating Lopez in a rematch. This time it was closer, but Sanchez won in the fourteenth.

The unsung and under-rated Patrick Ford, from Guyana, gave him a scare in his next defence, but Juan LaPorte and Roberto Castanon were brushed aside, before he had his first test against a great. Wilfredo Gomez was stepping up in weight and well fancied to beat the young Mexican, but Sanchez took his best shots and battered the Puerto Rican to defeat in the eighth round.

A last-round knockdown helped him to victory over Pat Cowdell, while Jorge Garcia soaked up another beating before an little-known Ghanaian called Azumah Nelson proved much-tougher opposition than expected in a compelling contest at Madison Square Garden. It took Sanchez until the fifteenth round to grind Nelson down in July 1982.

Just 22 days later, Sanchez was dead. He died instantly when he was hit head-on by a truck while attempting an overtaking manoeuvre in his Porsche in the early hours on a road near Mexico City. In keeping with his busy schedule, he was in training for a rematch with LaPorte in September, while a second fight with Gomez was already planned and even a fight against Alexis Arguello at lightweight.

Had he lived he could have gone on to be a multiple world champion and all-time pound-for-pound great. He held great power in his right hand, which he would most likely have carried up in weight, while he showed no signs of wear-and-tear, despite his busy career. His popularity in the US would certainly have meant he would have been involved in some more epic battles during the Eighties. But he stand, alongside Julio Cesar Chavez, as the greatest of Mexican fighters.

Comments

[Matt J]

come on Ron, finish the list!

[James Fairweather]

It's worth remembering how great a task Sanchez was taking on when he faced Gomez in 1981. The Puerto Rican was regarded by many as unbeatable, a titan among the lower weights, who had won all his championship fights inside the distance. Sanchez was a clear underdog and one who had the added pressure of sustaining Mexican pride following one of the most heated Mexico-Puerto Rico build-ups there has ever been.

In the event, Sanchez gave what I still believe to be the greatest single all-round performance in championship boxing history. When one considers the calibre of opponent and the momentous nature of the occasion, it is hard to recall a supposedly pick 'em fight in which one man so clearly outclassed his rival by deployment of every formidable weapon in his arsenal, rather than because that rival froze or was otherwise below his best.

From the perfect counterpunch that floored Gomez in the first to the eighth round finish, Sanchez was in full control of the entire contest. In other acknowledged masterpieces, such as Pep-Saddler II, the loser at least had some moments of success throughout the fight. Against Sanchez, Gomez was simply shut out, as the scores for the completed seven rounds make clear. The assault that concluded the rout, precipitated by an unforgetable succession of three clubbing left hooks to the body and finished off by a succession of rights to the head, stands as the perfect example to any aspiring champion of what can be achieved in the game.

Sanchez created his legend that night and, although I've nit-picked about his precise position in this list before, there's no question in my mind that during those twenty-three minutes against Gomez, he would have beaten any nine-stone fighter who ever lived.