Jose Napoles Part One: The Long Wait

 Jose Napoles

Nicknamed Mantequilla, the Spanish word for butter - as in he was as smooth as butter - suited the sleek Cuban boxer, who made the sport look so effortless. Born as Jose Angel Napoles in Santiago de Cuba, on 13th April 1940,  he composed an amateur record of over one hundred fights, losing just one.

 

Napoles turned professional as a featherweight aged eighteen on 2nd August 1958, stopping fellow Cuban Julio Rojas in the first round in Havana. He remained undefeated until his eighth fight when he dropped an eight-round unanimous decision to Florida’s Hilton Smith at the same Coliseo Nacional he debuted at on 22nd August 1959.

 

Napoles won his next thirteen bouts to go 20-1 (6 KOs), and his ten-round unanimous decision victory over countryman Angel Robinson Garcia on 3rd June 1961 proved to be his final contest in Cuba, as the country’s president, Fidel Castro, banned professional boxing.

 

Mantequilla then defected to Mexico to continue his paid profession, making Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua his hometown. He made his Mexican debut in Mexico City with a two-round stoppage victory over Enrique Camarena on 21st July 1962, thirteen months after his previous bout. He ended the year with a ten-round points victory over Tony Perez to go 24-1 (9 KOs), only to drop a points decision to Perez in January 1963.

 

Two victories later, the twenty-three-year-old was on the wrong end of a ten-round points decision against Alfredo Urbina at the end of April 1963. Napoles went on a nineteen-bout winning spree over three years, avenging his second defeat with a third-round TKO over Tony Perez, a seventh-round kayo over America’s L.C (Langston Carl) Morgan, both in November 1963, a first-round technical knockout over Alfredo Urbina in April 1964 to avenge his third pro defeat, stopping Urbina again, this time in the third, seven months later. His unbeaten run ended when L.C Morgan, whom he stopped again in February 1965, gained a fourth-round TKO over him in August 1966, as he dropped to 45-4 (27 KOs).

 

Napoles went on to win his next fourteen bouts, avenging the Morgan setback with a second-round TKO victory over him in July 1967, with only Ghana’s Peter Cobblah and America’s Eddie Pace hearing the final bell before his long-awaited crack at WBA and WBC welterweight champion Curtis Cokes on 18th April 1969, some eleven years after turning pro.

 

Cokes, born in Dallas, Texas, was a career welterweight and made his professional debut with a six-round points win over countryman Manuel Gonzalez on 23rd March 1958, winning the vacant WBA welterweight title against Gonzalez on 24th August 1966, in what was their fifth and final meeting (Cokes went 4-1 up over Gonzalez). The welterweight title was left vacant when Emile Griffith successfully stepped up to middleweight and dethroned Dick Tiger for the WBA and WBC middleweight title in April 1966.

 

The twenty-nine-year-old Cokes made five successful defences of the welterweight crown, plus several non-title fights, before facing Napoles for a purse of $80,000. The twenty-nine-year-old challenger hammered the thirty-one-year-old defending champion into submission after thirteen one-sided rounds at the Forum, Inglewood, USA. Judges George Latka and Joey Olmos both had Napoles eleven rounds to one up and John Thomas saw it ten rounds to two in favour of the Cuban.

 

Cokes, with his eyes swollen after Napoles's relentless attack, wanted to continue after thirteen completed rounds, but his manager, Doug Lord asked for the contest to be stopped.

 

Cuco Conde, the manager of Napoles, said he agreed to give the former champion a rematch with a venue yet to be decided. “I just couldn’t get off,” admitted Cokes afterwards, “I just couldn’t get started. Yes, I’d like a rematch.”

 

“I knew about the tenth round when he didn’t like those left hooks to the body that I was winning,” said the new champion, who received $20,000 for his efforts. “I followed the plan of keeping Cokes in the centre of the ring and not let him fight off the ropes.”

 

“You’ll see a different Curtis Cokes in the rematch,” promised Doug Lord. “If you don’t, I’ll retire him myself.”

 

Ten weeks later, on 29th June, Napoles and Cokes fought again in front of 25,000 fans at Mexico City’s Monumental Plaza de Toros México. It was a cold wet night, and Cokes once again was battered. This time, with his right eye tightly shut, and his face bloody and his on rubbery legs, he shook his head in anguish as he sat on his stool and refused to come out as the bell rang to start round eleven. “He’s a very good fighter - sure as hell is a better fighter than Curtis Cokes,” admitted the beaten challenger when asked of his opinion about Napoles. 

 

The champion improved to 61-4 (41 KOs) and the following day he was granted Mexican citizenship by President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, before looking forward to the challenge of ex-champion Emile Griffith.

All the best fight fans

Lea

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