The month of October means it’s time to vote for the Hall of Fame again. This year's modern men's ballot includes four new names: Lucian Bute, Mikey Garcia, Manny Pacquaio, and Shawn Porter.
Pacquaio was the only name I checked off because he is undoubtedly a first-ballot HOFer. He is the only eight-division champion in boxing history and was in the Ring pound-for-pound top ten for over a decade. If a voter doesn't check his name off the list, they should have their voting privilege revoked.
After Pacquaio, I quickly determined that none of the other new names deserved induction.
Garcia started off with promise after beating Orlando Salido, Juan Manuel Lopez, and Rocky Martinez, but then he took two years off in his prime due to a legal battle with Top Rank. When Garcia finally returned, he prioritized weight-class jumping to earn more titles without defending them. In my opinion, he didn’t score enough big wins in his career.
Although Bute recorded 9 title defenses, less than half were against Ring-rated contenders. He elected to stay at home in Montreal for multiple easy fights against sub-par opposition. Although it wasn’t his fault that many of the top super-middleweights were tied up with the Super Six World Boxing Classic, his quality of opposition still adversely affects his legacy. After the Super Six, Bute finally got to fight a big name, and Carl Froch annihilated him. After that demolition job, Bute wasn’t the same fighter, going 2-4 to close out the last five years of his career.
While Shawn Porter deserves credit for facing the best welterweights of his era, he lost all those bouts to Kell Brook, Keith Thurman, Errol Spence, and Terence Crawford. Porter did beat several other contenders, but he only recorded two title defenses in his career. His resume lacks quantity and quality for induction.
Having selected Pacquaio, I decided to vote for three names I had voted for previously: Michalczewski, Roman, and Wonjongkam. You can read my article from last year for my rationale. That left me with one more selection to make if I wanted to.
After reviewing the remaining names on the ballot, I gave a longer look at the following candidates: Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Chris John, Santos Laciar, Michael Nunn, Veeraphol Sahaprom, and Wilfredo Vazquez Sr. After doing so, I decided to give my last checkmark to Argentina’s Laciar.
Laciar fought from 1976-1990 and accumulated a record of 79-10-11 (31 KO). That equates to one hundred fights in fourteen years, for an average of seven fights per year. He was very active, especially in the modern era. Although there are many losses and draws on his record, that is the case for many previous inductees from earlier eras. I focused on his 26-fight unbeaten streak from 1982-1987, during which he recorded ten defenses of his WBA flyweight title. That is an impressive run, which puts him up there with some of the best flyweights ever.
Laciar also notched key wins over Betulio Gonzalez (who should be on the ballot), Hilario Zapata (HOF Class of 2016), and Gilberto Roman. If you compare Laciar to other flyweights on the ballot with similar amount of title defenses like Yuri Arbachakov and Sot Chitalada, he has significantly more fights, wins, and years of experience than them. Although Omar Narvaez had more title defenses at flyweight than Laciar as well as many at junior bantamweight, only three out of his twenty-seven total title defenses (11%) came against Ring-Ranked contenders. That percentage is the second-lowest of the names on the ballot, which is a key factor working against him. With that additional analysis, I felt that Laciar was deserving of induction. Feel free to check out his highlight reel below.
To summarize, I voted for Laciar, Michalczewski, Pacquaio, Roman, and Wonjongkam. Besides Pacquaio, the ballot is void of any shoo-ins, which means there are induction opportunities for the other candidates. Although I hope my other selections get their name called, it will be a challenge since they are all non-American, and the majority are lower-weight fighters, and thus less popular. That being said, this is a leaner year so they have a better shot at induction. Regardless, I am looking forward to December 1st when the Class of 2025 will officially be announced and I will be able to share that news with you.
Great stuff, appreciate the commentary