Jose Napoles Part Six: Hall of Famer

Jose Napoles

Jose Napoles dared to be great in his seventh-round defeat to undisputed middleweight champion Carlos Monzon. Wisely, the Cuban returned to the welterweight division and defended his world titles in a rematch with Hedgemon Lewis on 3rd August 1974 at the Palacio de los Deportes, Mexico City.

After their first meeting in December 1971, Lewis defeated Mexico’s Ruben Vazquez Zamora with a ten-round points decision in May 1972, before a month later facing Billy Backus for the vacant New York State Athletic Commission world welterweight championship. The NYSAC title was stripped from Napoles in November 1971 when he failed to meet Backus in a rematch ordered by the Canastota Boxing Club.

 

Lewis knocked Backus down in the second round en route to a fifteen-round unanimous decision to become a rival world champion to Napoles. Lewis had two more victories before facing Backus again in the maiden defence of his NYSAC title in December, again defeating the challenger via a unanimous decision.

 

Lewis won his next six contests - all non-title bouts - before facing Napoles for the WBA and WBC welterweight belts. The challenger, at twenty-eight, six years the junior of Napoles, was seen by most experts to be facing the Cuban exile at the right time. However, Napoles did not read the script and dominated the contest from the start. Even a cut over his left eyebrow - which was masterfully worked on by trainer Angelo Dundee - did not deter the defending champion.

 

Napoles took command at the start of round nine, slamming in punishing blows on the challenger from Los Angeles, wobbling him into the ropes, as the champion crashed in lefts and rights. Referee Ramon Berumen stopped the contest with 20 seconds of the round remaining when it was obvious Lewis was not defending himself.

 

Napoles finished 1974 with a 14th December defence against Argentina’s Horacio Saldano at Mexico City’s Palacio de los Desportes. The challenger started his paid career in February 1965 and amassed a record of 51-4-9 (31 KOs), which included two failed attempts to lift the Argentinian welterweight title (a points loss to Ramon La Cruz in July 1971 and a draw against Abel Cahazu in November 1973).

 

The Cuban, making the eighth defence in his second tenure as world champion, dominated the seventh-ranked Argentinian for two rounds. In the third, Napoles landed a hard combination to send his opponent’s gum shield flying out into the crowd, before dropping him for the full count with a right cross. "Napoles belies his age. He's so fast! I've never seen anything like him," said the twenty-seven-year-old challenger.

 

Next to face Napoles was Armando Muniz at the Centro Internacional Acapulco on 29th March 1975. Muniz, born in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico - the same State Napoles defected to - represented Team USA as a welterweight at the Mexico City Olympic Games in 1968, losing in the quarterfinals to the Argentinian Mario Omar Guilliotti. The Los Angeles resident then won the 1969 and 1970 National AAU welterweight championships before joining the paid ranks.

 

On 19th November 1971, Muniz, with a record of 15-0-1 (11 KOs), faced fellow twenty-four-year-old Clyde Gray for the vacant NABF welterweight title. Despite Gray’s lofty number four world ranking, Muniz stopped his Canadian opponent in the ninth round to lift his first professional belt.

 

Muniz lost his unbeaten record two months later, dropping a ten-round unanimous decision to the thirty-three-year-old Emile Griffith. He took part in eleven more bouts, including three successful defences of the NABF title against Ruben Vazquez Zamora, Percy Pugh, and Adolph Pruitt, before surrendering the championship via a spilt twelve-round decision against Eddie Perkins, dropping to 24-4-1 (17 KOs).

 

Muniz lost once in his next nine fights - including a seventh-round retirement victory over Ernie ‘Indian Red’ Lopez in July 1973 - before challenging Perkins for the NABF title in March 1974, dropping a twelve-round unanimous decision. The following month he lost a ten-round majority decision to Mexico’s Marcos Geraldo. He then won his next four out of five contests, which included a ten-round unanimous decision over Hedgemon Lewis in December 1973, three months before his world title shot against Napoles.

However, Muniz was preparing for a rematch with Ernie Lopez, scheduled for 28th March 1975 at the Anaheim Convention Center, California, when he got the call to face Napoles the day after instead. Muniz ended up paying damages to allow his world title shot to take place.

 

Although Muniz, a ten-to-one underdog, had Mexican blood, his fellow Mexicans did not treat him kindly upon arrival at the Acapulco press conference. They saw him as the Chicano from California, brought in just to be another victim for the Cuban-born champion, who adopted Mexico after the 1960 revolution in his country. The term Chicano was used to describe those of Mexican blood who lived or were born in the United States. 

 

The challenger cared little for what other people thought and pressured the slick defending world champion from the opening bell. Napoles called upon his vast ring experience in the second to administer the tricks of the trade, which included headbutts and other various infringements, to negate the twenty-seven-year-old’s constant pressure. By round three the Cuban was cut, though it was deemed Muniz had butted his opponent, he was not warned about the foul until the fourth round. The champion, however, was never warned about the illegal use of his head.

 

Muniz continued his pressure and by the tenth Napoles had slowed, allowing the challenger to nail the champion with some solid blows, busting him up and by the end of the round had him staggered. In round eleven, the champion clinched Muniz with his left arm and pounded lefts into the challenger’s groin, who lifted one leg in front of the other for protection. Again, Napoles was not reprimanded for his antics.

 

Blood was everywhere and the challenger’s trunks were covered in it. The fight was finally stopped after 50 seconds of the twelfth round because of the severe gash on Napoles’s eyelid and a small cut over his right eyebrow. Napoles kept his titles on a technical decision. 

 

“The judges noted the headbutts but said nothing about the dirty punches Napoles threw,” said Muniz afterwards. “This is an injustice.

 

“They robbed me, and I didn't make a big stink about it. Ninety percent of the people thought I won.

 

“I think Jose Sulaiman (WBC President) said this was his decision. So, I lost the fight. Napoles could do no wrong. He was like a God down there. Even in the town I was born, they adored the guy,” concluded Muniz.

 

“When a fight is suspended because of dangerous injuries like these, it is considered a TKO against the boxer who can no longer fight, but here the opposite occurred,” said the challenger’s manager, Vic Weiss.

 

“In all my years in boxing, this is the first time I could truly call a decision a crime,” stated Joey Olmos of the California State Athletic Commission. 

 

Even the Mexican writers not affiliated with the Napoles camp also called the fight El Robo del Siglo (robbery of the century). Despite the backlash over the ending, the decision was not overturned. 

 

The Associated Press reported that Napoles had to be under doctor’s care for at least a month because of the injuries he sustained during the contest. Dr. Horacio Ramirez operated on the champion the following day and kept Napoles under observation to determine whether the wound had injured his eye.

 

Due to the controversial way their first fight ended; the rematch was scheduled to take place four months later, on 12th July at Mexico City’s Palacio de los Deportes. Both fighters entered the ring the same weight as in their first encounter; Napoles 147 pounds (66.68 Kg); and Muniz 146 pounds (66.23 Kg). However, the contest would only be for the WBC version of the welterweight crown as the World Boxing Association stripped Napoles for not signing terms to face their mandatory contender Angel Espada, who outscored Clyde Gray for the vacant title on 28th June 1975.

Napoles, now thirty-five years old, made sure there would be no controversy and dominated the match from the start. The twenty-eight-year-old challenger did not make things easy for the champion, staying close to the Cuban and targeted his body for the first seven rounds.

 

Muniz switched his attack to the head in the eighth and was found to be no match for the champion’s swift and accurate jabs. With 10 seconds of the round remaining the challenger was on the canvas from a right-left combination. Muniz rose quickly and survived the full fifteen rounds with both men bloodied at the end. Napoles had a deep laceration that bled profusely over his right eyebrow, and his right eye was also nearly shut. Muniz also bled from a cut left eyebrow and another gash above his right cheek.

 

Referee Octavio Meyran scored the fight 150-138, and judges Roque Larios (149-141) and Hildegardo Navarette (150-142) unanimously sided with the champion. "Muniz was a much harder and superior fighter than I expected. But at least I was able to demonstrate to the world that I'm the champion," said Napoles afterwards.

Napoles made his eleventh defence against Britain’s John H Stracey at Mexico City’s Monumental Plaza de Toros on 6th December 1975 in front of 60,000 fans. Stracey was born in Barking on 22nd September 1950 and represented Great Britain as a lightweight in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, before becoming the ABA light-welterweight champion in 1969.

 

Stracey joined the paid ranks under the guidance of manager Terry Lawless that very September, embarking on a 21-0-1 (17 KOs) unbeaten run before losing an eight-round decision to the undefeated Canadian Marshall Butler in April 1972. He won his next three before losing a vacant British welterweight title contest in the seventh round by disqualification when he hit Bobby Arthur on the break.

Stracey won his next five contests before getting a second crack at Arthur for the British title in June 1973. The champion was making the first defence of the Lonsdale belt and had not fought since winning the championship eight months previously. Stracey avenged the disqualification defeat with a fourth-round knockout and continued to win before losing to America’s Cuby Jackson by a third-round TKO due to a split left eye, as his record dropped to 34-3-1 (24 KOs).

 

The Londoner won his next two bouts before challenging European welterweight champion Roger Menetrey at the Stade Roland Garros, Paris in May 1974. Stracey added the Frenchman’s EBU title to his British crown with an eighth-round knockout over the former world title challenger. 

 

He continued his winning streak, stopping Tony Garcia in the third round; and Ernie ‘Indian Red’ Lopez in seven, before defending his EBU belt in April 1975 against Switzerland’s Max Hebeisen, who retired after six rounds. Two months later Mexico’s Ruben Vazquez Zamora was stopped in eight rounds and America's Keith Averette was disqualified in the eighth round for persistent use of his head, three months before his challenge to Napoles.

 

The thirty-five-year-old champion was a strong favourite to keep hold of his WBC championship, despite being ten years older than the challenger. Even people in Britain did not fancy Stracey’s chances of victory and that looked to be the case when Napoles floored the East End man with a left hook in the opening round. The challenger was up at eight and grittily withstood Napoles’s attempts to finish him.

 

Stracey, weighing 145 pounds (65.77 Kg), 2 pounds (907 g) less than the champion, used his left-hand skills and speed of youth to bring him back into the contest. By the third round, the decline of the champion was all too clear as Stracey’s accurate punches began to take their toll and a left hand briefly floored Napoles. The champion’s adoring Mexican fans could not believe their eyes and showed their discontent by showering the ring with debris, mostly seat cushions. 

The challenger continued to take the champion apart and testament to his punching power, the Cuban soon began to swell and mark up. As the fight drew on Napoles started to tire, and in the sixth Stracey drilled in some punches and relentlessly hammered the champion on the ropes until referee Octavio Meyran had no option but to save the Mexican hero with 30 seconds of the round remaining.

 

“The win over Jose Napoles was the best night of my career; that win over Napoles in 1975, which was actually in the late afternoon, is an obvious choice,” recalled Stracey forty-two years later to Boxing News.

 

“That fight is still very vivid in the mind, especially the first-round knockdown. I can still think back and take it all in. Not too many people gave me a chance to win, and to beat Napoles, especially in his own city of Mexico, was special. I was lucky to have fought one of the all-time greats, who had been there, done everything and had the T-shirt. Napoles was a great boxer, one of the very best in history without a shadow of a doubt.”

 

The Stracey defeat was the final time Napoles graced the ring, retiring from the sport with an 81-7 (54 KOs) record. He managed to resist all temptations of a comeback and was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1984 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. Napoles was also named the fourth greatest welterweight of the twentieth century by the Associated Press in 1999.

 

In his later years, the two-time world welterweight champion lived with diabetes and Alzheimer’s. He died, aged seventy-nine, in his home in Mexico City on 16th August 2019 after a lengthy illness, with his children and grandchildren at his bedside.

 

World Boxing President Mauricio Sulaiman posted this tribute on his Twitter (now X) account: “The great Hall of Fame WBC welterweight champion is now champion for eternity, he passed but did it with his loving children by his side, long live Jose ‘Mantequilla’ Napoles.” 

 

The WBC also released this statement: “Typical of the man, who was the bravest and most courageous of fighters, that although he had been affected by various illnesses for some time, he bravely battled on, attending WBC events, always smiling and being greeted by his many friends and fans, who admired him as a fighter and as a man. Today that struggle came to an end.”

 

All the best fight fans

Lea

Boxing Books are available on Amazon, Kobo, Apple Books, Smash Words, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, and most other digital stores: https://linktr.ee/leroy_fight_writer