Salvador Sanchez Part Two: Only The Great Die Young

Salvador Sanchez 

Next up to challenge Salvador Sanchez was Spain’s twenty-eight-year-old reigning European featherweight champion Roberto Castanon. The challenger boasted a 42-1 (24 KOs) record, and his only loss was a second-round knockout in his challenge to Danny Lopez for the WBC title in March 1979.

 

Sanchez-Castanon took place on 22nd March 1981 at Caesar Palace’s Sports Pavilion in Las Vegas, with the twenty-two-year-old hardly losing a round on his way to a tenth-round technical knockout.

 

The champion did not fight again until 11th July in a ten-round non-title contest against America’s Nicky Perez at the Olympic Auditorium in front of a Los Angeles crowd. Sanchez was declared a unanimous winner with scores of 100-91, 100-90 and 98-92, improving his record to 40-1-1 (30 KOs), before a sterner challenge from Wilfredo Gomez scheduled for 21st August in Las Vegas.

 

Gomez, born in Puerto Rico on 29th October 1959, had a 96-3 amateur career, representing his country in the 1972 Moscow Olympics as a flyweight and winning the inaugural 1974 world amateur championship at bantamweight in Havana, Cuba, turning professional in November that year.

 

After drawing his first contest, Gomez ripped through the super-bantamweight division, stopping his next fifteen opponents on his way to challenging South Korea’s WBC champion Dong-Kyun Yum in May 1977. The champion, making his second defence, surprised the twenty-year-old challenger when he dropped him in the opening minute of the first round with a sweeping left hook. Gomez was also shaken up in the third, but in round four, his heavy fists began to land, and the challenger took over, stopping the defending champion in round twelve.

 

Gomez knocked out his next fifteen opponents, including thirteen defences of his WBC crown, bringing his record to 32-0-1 (32 KOs) when he challenged Sanchez for the featherweight title at Caesars Palace. Despite Sanchez being the naturally bigger man and boasting an impressive record himself, it was the undefeated Gomez who was installed as favourite by the oddsmakers.

 

Both fighters scaled in on the featherweight limit of 126 pounds (57.15 Kg) on the day of the contest, but, surprisingly, it was Gomez, making his featherweight debut, who struggled to make the weight. He had to wake up at 4:30 am to give himself 4½ hours to shed the 4 pounds (1.81 Kg) excess, whilst Sanchez, who sparred 220 rounds in preparation for his title defence, looked solid at the weight.

 

Gomez took the fight to the Mexican and backed the champion to the ropes, only for Sanchez to utilise his superior counter-punching skills. After taking a combination to the head, Sanchez retaliated with a left hook followed by a right to floor and daze Gomez within the opening 30 seconds.

 

The challenger was not deterred and went back on the attack at the start of the second as Sanchez calmly landed as both men traded punches. By the sixth round, Gomez suffered a broken cheekbone, a bloody nose and his left eye was nearly shut tight. Although Sanchez was unmarked, the fight was not as one-sided as the challenger’s face would suggest.

 

However, the end came in the eighth as Gomez rose from another knockdown and referee Carlos Padilla waved the finish at the two-minute and 9-second point of the round. All three judges had Sanchez slightly ahead at the time of the stoppage, with two scores of 67-65 and a card of 67-66.

 

Sanchez next climbed through the ropes on 12th December 1981 to face the challenge of Britain’s Pat Cowdell at the Astrodome, Houston, Texas. Cowdell, who won bronze as a bantamweight at the 1976 Olympic Games, and a multi-weight ABA winner before turning pro in July 1977, was the reigning British featherweight champion, with a respectable 19-3 (7 KOs) ledger.

 

The challenger caused Sanchez problems early on in the contest before the champion figured out his opponent and floored the Brit in the fifteenth and final round. The three American judges scored a split decision with Bob McMillon favouring Cowdell 145-144 as Dick Cole and James Jen Kin sided with Sanchez with cards of 146-140 and 148-137, respectively.

 

Twenty-four-year-old Mexican Rocky Garcia challenged Sanchez on 8th May 1982 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas. Garcia, who lost his last contest by a ten-round unanimous decision in November 1981 to Ruben Castillo, came to the ring with a 23-2 (12 KOs) record and was not expected to give the champion much of a challenge. However, Garcia put up plenty of resistance and lasted the full fifteen rounds to drop a decision by scores of 147-138, 147-141 and 146-141, respectively.

 

On 21st July 1982 at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Sanchez, still only twenty-three years old, made the ninth defence of his WBC crown against late substitute Azumah Nelson, who replaced the world-rated Mario Miranda.

 

The 13-0 (10 KOs) challenger, born in Accra, Ghana on 19th July 1958, was hardly known outside of his country and was expected to be an easy contest for the Mexican. However, both boxers engaged in a hotly contested battle, with Sanchez, as expected, boxing brilliantly. Nelson was not there just for a payday, and he surprised everyone, the champion included, with his immense fighting spirit.

Sanchez found a way through Nelson’s armour early in round seven, catching the challenger with a well-executed left hook to the jaw. Nelson stumbled back into a neutral corner and the Mexican pursued with a follow-up combination, culminating with a short left to put the Ghanaian down for a count of eight.

 

The challenger got back to work, and the second half of the contest was as entertaining as the first. Sanchez displayed his superior ringcraft whilst Nelson gave chase and never stopped throwing punches, with both boxers swapping extraordinary punches.

 

Nelson, though, had never gone past ten rounds in his professional career and he began to fight fatigue as well as the great opponent in front of him. Sensing he was behind on points going into the fifteenth round, the Ghanaian decided to go for broke and started to throw his heaviest artillery, leaving him open for the master counterpuncher to exploit.

 

The challenger was dazed and confused, and a brutal series of hooks floored the exhausted Nelson. The Ghanaian regained his feet, but Sanchez finished him with another heavy combination and referee Tony Perez came to his rescue at the one minute and 49 seconds mark of the round. “He was a very strong fighter with a lot of heart,” said Sanchez of Nelson after the fight. “He came to take my title. I wanted to finish him off earlier but he was too strong.”

 

“If Azumah had had a few more fights he would have won. Next time you’ll see a different Azumah Nelson,” promised his manager, John Kermah.

 

Soon after the victory over Nelson his promoter, Don King, announced that Sanchez would face Juan LaPorte in a rematch scheduled for 15th September, again at Madison Square Garden.

 

Sanchez soon started his training camp, but expressed an interest in studying to be a doctor once his boxing career was over, saying, “I’m only twenty-three, I have all the time in the world.”

 

Unfortunately for Sanchez, he tragically died in a car accident in Queretaro on 12th August 1982. He was driving in his white Porsche on the way to training when he accelerated to pass a truck. Another truck hit him head on and he was identified by the papers in his wallet.

 

Sanchez left the world with a record of 44-1-1 (32 KOs) and we can only dream of how great he could have become.

 

All the best fight fans

Lea

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