zack padilla...........how far could he have gone???

[bumdujour]

had he not suffered a brain injury while sparring with mosley???

remember the guy?? he was the wbo light welter champ in the early 90´s.

he was an virtual unkown when he upset then 36-0 carlos gonzales, then regarded as one of the top guns at 140, and won the wbo belt.

he defended it 3 times, including a 10th round stoppage of the still usefull and iron jawed juan laporte.

he was a non stop punching machine, setting a record for most punches thrown in a 12 round fight in his defense vs ray olivera.

he was in the middle of his prime when his carreer was abruply ended.

how far could he have gone?? he was ranked in the top 4 of the 140 pound devision at the time when guys like jc chavez, hector camacho, coggi, randall, hector lopez, charles murray etc were all competing at that weight.

how would he have done vs the mentioned fighters?????

[la-califa]

Very busy fighter, good workrate. Suprised everyone by beating Bollilo Gonzalez. Could have been a force in the Jr. Welterweight division, especially with Chavez, Camacho, Mosley about to move up from Lightweight. I'm not sure if he could have beaten the elite fighters, But he was talented enough to keep a grip on one of the Championship belts & held it for a while. Would have been all they could handle for: Gatti, Ivan Robinson, Frankie Randall, Zab Judah, Rafael Ruelas, & even maybe Kostya Tszyu. Very good fighter, shame his career ended early.

[Spitbucket]

Came close to making a thread about him a couple of weeks ago and
decided against it figuring noone outside southern Cal would remember him.

There were plenty of rumours about him sparring with Mosely and giving as good as he got!

[GazOC]

I don't think Laporte was "still useful", at the time of the Padilla fight he was losing more than he won and I don't think he won another fight after Padilla?

[Seamus]

I was very impressed with Padilla. Anyone know how he is doing these days?