Jose Napoles Part Four: The Second Reign

Jose Napoles

 

At the end of July 1971, eight weeks after regaining the undisputed welterweight title from Billy Backus, Jose Napoles returned to Mexico and stopped Puerto Rico’s David Melendez with a fifth-round TKO in a non-title bout. Twenty-three days later he kayoed Frenchman Jean Josselin in another non-title fight again in round five. On 16th October 1971 he featured in his third non-title contest, outsourcing Argentina’s Esteban Osuna over ten rounds.

Napoles made the first defence of his second tenure as WBA and WBC champion on 14th December 1971, taking on America’s Hedgemon Lewis at the Forum, Inglewood, California, sharing top billing with undisputed bantamweight champion Ruben Olivares, who stopped Jesus Pimental with an eleventh round retirement.

 

Hedgemon Lewis started boxing aged twelve at the Northern Recreation Center, Detroit, Michigan. As an amateur he won the Detroit Diamond Belt in 1963. The following year he became the National Golden Gloves lightweight champion and was a United States Olympic Trials semi-finalist in the light-welterweight division. In 1965 he was the National Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) welterweight champion and in 1966, just before turning professional, he picked up the National Golden Gloves welterweight title.

The twenty-five-year-old challenger, six years the champion’s junior, had amassed a solid professional record of 40-3 (22 KOs). Lewis was twice defeated by Ernie ‘Indian Red’ Lopez in July 1968 by a ninth-round stoppage and a tenth-round TKO in early October 1969, before dropping a unanimous decision against Adolph Pruitt on 12th January 1971. He stopped his next four opponents in as many months before his world title bid.

 

For the first six rounds, it was all Napoles, who aggressively scored points with his jab and withering body attacks. Hedgemon’s body showed welts all over, but this did not deter him from mounting a counterattack as he finally got his jab to work in the seventh. However, the tide turned again in the ninth, and apart from a thirteenth-round surge from the challenger, the judges unanimously awarded Napoles the victory.

 

“I thought I won it,” said the unsuccessful challenger. “He might have hit harder, but I got in more punches.”

 

“I was never hurt, but I was mad. He ran around too much to make it a good fight,” complained the champion. “He jabbed me pretty good in a few rounds and that’s how I get the cut. But he never hit me with a punch that hurt.”

On 28th March 1972, the defending champion travelled to the Empire Pool, Wembley, London to face the British, Commonwealth and former European welterweight champion Ralph Charles of West Ham.

 

Charles, born in February 1943, was a decorated amateur and started his paid career in October 1963. He won his first professional title in April 1966 going 16-0 (13 KOs), only to lose by stoppage the following month to Zimbabwe’s Ernest Musso in the eighth and final round.

 

He bounced back with six wins before challenging British and Commonwealth welterweight champion Johnny Cooke at the Royal Albert Hall in February 1968. After fifteen rounds, referee and sole judge Harry Gibbs, scored in favour of Charles by scores of 74½ to 73½ (two rounds).

 

Charles stopped his next eight before defending his domestic titles for the first time against Chuck Henderson in November 1969. The champion knocked out Henderson in the fifth round, only to drop a ten-round decision to Mexican Raul Soriano in February 1970.

 

Charles bounced back with two third-round TKOs over Dave Hilton and Johnny Kramer on 24th and 31st March, before adding Austria’s Johan Orsolics European title to his British and Commonwealth crowns with a twelfth-round TKO in Vienna on 20th November 1970.

 

In June 1971 he travelled to the Ice Stadium, Geneva, Switzerland and surrendered his EBU title with a seventh-round TKO to Frenchman Roger Menetery. Three months later he was on the road in Brisbane, Australia, successfully retaining his Commonwealth belt with a fifth-round technical knockout. He finished the year with an eighth-round TKO over Bernie Terrell in defence of his British and Commonwealth titles, before challenging Napoles for the world championship. 

 

Charles, 39-3 (33 KOs), arrived at the Empire Pool weighing bang on the welterweight limit of 147 pounds (66.68 Kg), with the defending champion scaling in at a pound (454g) lighter. The slight weight disadvantage did not deter Napoles from starting the fight aggressively, as he landed some good body punches, and in round three caught the Briton with a jolting left hook to the jaw.

 

Charles responded in the fourth by landing some good combinations, much to the delight of the 6,000-strong fans in attendance. The challenger kept the Cuban at bay in the fifth, and in the sixth, with Napoles seeming to fade, landed a strong right to the jaw and a sharp left to the face.

 

However, the defending champion upped the pace in the seventh, hounding Charles from one side of the ring to the other, before taking him out with a left hook and right cross combination. Referee James Brimmell counted out the stricken Briton with only 8 seconds of the round remaining. It proved to be the final contest of Charles’s career, bowing out of the sport at the age of twenty-nine.

On 10th June 1972, the defending champion returned to Mexico to face Adolph Pruitt. It was the second time the American locked horns with Napoles, the first time came in December 1965, when the referee stopped the fight in round three when Pruitt apparently suffered a fractured right hand after hitting his opponent on the head. The actual injury was a separated shoulder that required an operation, keeping the American out of the ring for twelve months. 

 

Pruitt returned at the end of 1966 with a ten-round unanimous decision over Ernie Lopez, going 4-2 over the next ten months. At the start of 1968, he started an unbeaten run of seven - with only Fel Padranza of the Philippines hearing the final bell - to take his resume to 29-7-2 (20 KOs), before dropping a fifteen-round unanimous decision to Pedro Adigue Jr for the vacant WBC light-welterweight title in December 1968.

 

Two months later he avenged the Adigue Jr defeat with a fifth-round TKO, though the title was not on the line, and remained undefeated for his next six contests, before dropping a fifteen-round unanimous decision in his challenge to WBA light-welterweight champion Nicolino Locche of Argentina in May 1970. Pruitt lost one in his next eleven bouts - a sixth-round TKO loss in June 1971 to Raul Soriano, which was avenged two months later with a sixth-round TKO - to improve his record to 46-10-2 (32 KOs), before his world welterweight challenge to Jose Napoles.

 

A capacity 13,800 crowd at the Plaza de Toros Monumental, Monterrey, watched as the challenger, weighing 144 pounds (65.32 Kg) took the fight to the 146 pounds (66.22 Kg) champion from the opening bell. The attack did little to ruffle Napoles, who scored effectively with short and long left leads.

 

The Cuban, fighting in front of his adoring, adopted Mexican fans, slammed Pruitt in the face and the head at will to start the second round. The challenger’s bob-and-weave style was ineffective as the champion repeatedly scored even when backed into a corner. Napoles’s punches were hard and accurate, as Pruitt’s closed right eye and cut left eye would attest, with referee Octavio Meyran stopping proceedings at the two-minute and 10-second mark of round two. “There was no point in letting it continue,” said the Mexican referee. “Pruitt just couldn’t see anymore.”

 

“He telegraphed all his punches with his body,” said the champion afterwards, pocketing $70,000.

 

“The champ was very smart with his punches. He’s a great boxer and didn’t give me a chance,” admitted Pruitt afterwards, who would go on to lose his next and final fight to Armando Muniz in a bid to win the North American Boxing Federation (NABF) welterweight title in December 1972.

 

In August 1972, Napoles stopped Brazilian Edmundo Leite in the second round of a non-title fight in front of his Mexican fans, before travelling back to Inglewood’s Forum to defend his world titles against Ernie Lopez on 28th February 1973.

Lopez had already challenged Napoles at the same venue back in February 1970, losing by a technical knockout with 22 seconds of the fifteenth round remaining. Lopez won ten of his next twelve, only losing to Emile Griffith by a majority verdict in May 1971 and a unanimous decision in March 1972, respectively.

 

The twenty-seven-year-old challenger, five years Napoles junior, had a record of 49-8-1 (25 KOs) and had only been stopped by the champion in their previous meeting. Both men weighed 147 pounds (66.68 Kg) and Lopez started the contest boxing. Things looked to be going the American’s way when he inflicted a cut over the bridge of the champion’s nose, and then another cut alongside the right eye in the third.

 

Despite the damage, Napoles remained dominant and ended matters 96 seconds into round seven, slamming a left hook into the challenger’s face and quickly firing in two uppercuts. Lopez, the Ute Indian, first went up into the air and then flat on his back for a full two minutes. “I never saw power like that,” conceded the challenger’s manager, Howie Steindler.

 

“At no time were we concerned,” said cutman Angelo Dundee. “The cuts were superficial. We told him (Napoles) to pick his spots and counter because Lopez was starting to get sloppy and make mistakes.” 

Jose Napoles next defended his belts in France at the Palais des Sports, Grenoble, Isère, against the European welterweight champion Roger Menetrey on 23rd June 1973. The Frenchman had been a professional since November 1967, and the twenty-eight-year-old had a solid record of 49-4-1 (41 KOs). He won the French welterweight title in November 1969 with a fifth-round knockout over Jean Josselin (two years later Josselin was knocked out in the fifth round by Napoles in a non-title fight in the United States).

 

In January and March 1971, Menetrey suffered back-to-back defeats to Swindon’s Ricky Porter (fifth-round stoppage) and a ten round points loss to Milan’s Sandro Lopopolo, before challenging and defeating the defending EBU welterweight champion Ralph Charles, three months later. 

 

The Frenchman went on a nine-fight unbeaten run, including revenge victories over Porter and Lopopolo, and four defences of his European crown, before facing Napoles.

 

However, despite the good run of the challenger, he showed little ambition to take the world titles as Napoles went on to unanimously outscore Menetrey, only dropping one round on one of the judge’s cards. “There are a lot of guys who wouldn’t have been able to stand the punishment,” praised Napoles afterwards. “He has enormous resistance.”

 

“He’s just unbeatable,” conceded Menetrey, “I didn’t really touch him more than once.”   

 

Next to face Napoles was Canada's Clyde Gray on 22nd September 1973 at the Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Ontario. The challenger started his paid career in March 1968, winning twenty-one fights in a row (12 KOs), before losing a ten-round decision to America’s Eddie Perkins in April 1970.

Gray remained unbeaten in his next nine contests, which included winning the Canadian welterweight title and two successful defences. He then challenged Armando Muniz for the vacant NABF welterweight crown in November 1971. Gray was ranked number four in the world and looked to be pulling away from Muniz until the contest was halted after the eighth round to replace the Canadian’s torn gloves. The delay lasted for seven minutes, and Muniz came out refreshed for the ninth and knocked Gray flat on his back to win the title.

 

The Canadian got his career back on track, winning his next eleven contests, including a ten-round decision over Marcel Cerdan Jnr - the son of the former world middleweight champion - in Marseille, France, and outpointing Ghana’s Eddie Blay to capture the vacant Commonwealth championship, before his world title challenge to Napoles.

 

Napoles, weighing 147 pounds (66.68 Kg) floored his 145 pounds (65.77 Kg) challenger in the fifth round, en route to a fifteen-round decision. As an experiment, the judges’ scorecards were publicly posted after each round. However, the wrongly announced split decision verdict was quickly changed to a unanimous one after an inspection of judge Jay Edson’s card. The sixth successful defence of his second tenure as champion improved the Cuban’s record to 77-5 (52 KOs).

All the best fight fans

Lea

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