FanPost

Class of 1979 vs 2009

I'm taking a cue from the "Which Decade Was Boxing's Greatest" post. You may object to some of my choices and my leaving out some legends such as Aaron Pryor and Salvador Sanchez ( while both guys were active in 1979, they won their championships in 1980). Another controversial choice might be my inclusion of Israel Vasquez down at 122. He was stripped of his title in the beginning of '09, but do you really wanna talk about Zarate vs Nishioka? Floyd Mayweather Jr. came out of retirement in 2009 as a welter...then faced a blown up Juan Manuel Marquez, so I left him out and replaced him with Shane Mosley at Welter.

I left out 154 because I didn't think there were any compelling match ups to talk about between these two classes for that division. Also, I decided to stop at Bantamweight.

Okay, I couldn't resist including the one fantasy match up that gets all our hearts pumping: Roberto Duran vs Manny Pacquiao. Duran crashed the 147 pound division a year before in 1978 and won no titles but absolutely schooled legendary hardman and former welterweight champion Carlos Palomino while Manny Pacquiao had a monster 2009 as he ripped through Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto.

I'm certainly open to any revisions to this list, although, I hope you all have fun playing with this one. Enjoy!

Heavy: Larry Holmes vs Wladimir Klitschko

Light Heavy: Matthew Saad Muhammad vs Chad Dawson

Middle: Marvin Hagler vs Kelly Pavlik

Welterweight: Sugar Ray Leonard vs Shane Mosley

Jr. Welterweight: Wilfred Benitez vs Timothy Bradley

Lightweight: Esteban de Jesus vs Juan Manuel Marquez

Jr.Lightweight: Alexis Arguello vs Humberto Soto

Featherweight: Danny Lopez vs Chris John

Jr. Featherweight: Wilfredo Gomez vs Israel Vasquez

Bantamweight: Carlos Zarate vs Fernando Montiel

Bonus:

Weight Crashers: Roberto Duran vs Manny Pacquiao

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