(Boxing) Some Cuban Fighters (Videos)Yamplier (“Yanqui”) Azcuy Díaz (born January 23, 1976 in Pinar del Río) is a former professional heavyweight boxer from Cuba.
Diaz started boxing at the age of twelve and had 205 amateur fights (191-14). He fought as an amateur for eleven years and was a member of the Cuban national team until he was 25. Diaz fought the legendary Félix Savón twice, and he reportedly scored two knockdowns in the fights, but Savon won both by decision.
On August 13, 2004 Diaz upset highly regarded and undefeated Cuban heavyweight prospect and former cruiserweight champion Juan Carlos Gomez with a vicious 1 round TKO. Still in 2004 he scored a victory over former title challenger Vaughn Bean.
August 2004. Defeated Juan Carlos Gomez by KO in round one.
However, his ascension was derailed on January 22, 2005 via a 5 round TKO loss to Nigerian power puncher Samuel Peter. He did not manage to score a win ever since, losing four out of his last six fights with two no contests. His last bout was in 2006 December when he was knocked out by former world champion Oliver McCall.
His current professional record stands at 13 wins (8 KOs) 5 losses and 2 no contests in 20 bouts.
Ramon Garbey
Born: March 31, 1971.
Defected just weeks before the 1996 Olympics.
16-3 as a Pro in the heavyweight division.
Former light middleweight world champion
“He was one of the most talented fighters I had ever seen,” said De Cubas. “But he couldn’t concentrate and stay with his training. When these young men are exposed to freedom, it becomes difficult.”
Kid Gavilan
Born: Gerardo Gonzalez, January 6 1926, in Havana
Lightweight | Pro record: 107-30-6 (28 KOs)
Lost welterweight title fight in 1949 to Sugar Ray Robinson. When Robinson moved up to middleweight, Gavilan took the title away from reigning champ Johnny Bratton in May 1951.
His title defense against Gil Turner drew a gate of $269,667. A record for that weight class.
Gavilan defended the title 7 times, losing to Johnny Saxton in what is remembered as “one of the worst decisions in boxing history.” After the fight, 20 of the 22 ringside reporters gave the fight to Gavilan.
Gavilan is also credited with inventing the “bolo punch,” a half hook, half uppercut developed by “years of cutting sugar cane with a machete.”
From the book Pitching Around Fidel:”The mention of Gavilan, a superb postwar Cuban welterweight who, in the early 1990s, was found half-blind and mush-mouthed in a two-room Miami flat, makes me realize that some of the rumors about Teófilo’s fogginess were wrong.”
Juan Carlos Gomez
1990 – Junior World Champion
1995 – Defected / Never faced off against top-rated cruiserweight Vassily Jirov
1998 – WBC cruiserweight champion
36-0 / Based in Germany / Competes at heavyweight
HBO – defeated Germany’s Sinan Samil Sam in ten rounds
Aug. 2004. Fighting “a bit heavy,” loses to Cuban Yanqui Diaz in a 1st round KO
October 16, 2005. In Germany, wins decision over Oliver McCall.
Jorge Luis Gonzalez
six-foot-seven…
He defeats Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe as amateurs…
1991 – Becomes “the first Cuban boxer of any magnitude” to defect when he seeks political asylum at a tournament in Finland. Luis De Cubas, a Cuban-American sports agent, brings him to the US.
As a pro, he wins his first 23 fights before losing to Bowe in the 6th round of WBO heavyweight title fight…
Dysbelis Hurtado
1994 – Hurtado defects at age 22 after the Cuban team compete in Connecticut and stops in Miami…
2002 – WBA Jr. Welterweight champion
Jose Legra
Born: April 19, 1943
Emigrates to Spain after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution
Often referred to as a “smaller version of Ali…”
2x featherweight championPro record: 133-12-4 (48 KOs)
Retires in 1973
Jose Angel “Mantequilla” Napoles
Born: April 13, 1940, in Santiago de Cuba.
1958 – Turns pro | Pro record: 77-7 (54 KOs)
1962 – Settles in Mexico.
Welterweight champion, 1969 & 1971, with 13 successful title defenses…
“one of the top lightweights and junior welterweights of the 1960s…”
April 18, 1969. At the Inglewood Forum (in California), gives champion Curtis Cokes “a beating” to claim the welterweight title. Other fighters in the class avoided him afterwards…
4th Cuban to hold the welterweight crown since WWII (Kid Gavilan, Benny Kid Paret, Luis Manuel Rodriquez)
1990. Added into the Boxing Hall of Fame.
Ultimino “Sugar” Ramos
Born: December 2, 1941, Matanzas
Pro record: 55-8-3 (40 KOs)
Luis Manuel Rodriguez
Born: March 14, 1937 – Died: July 8, 1996
Welterweight | Pro record: 106-13-2 (49 KOs)
1956 – Turns pro in Cuba, and moves to the U.S.
Goes undefeated in 36 fights until he loses a split decision to Emile Griffith.
Rodriguez and Griffith fight a total of four times, and each fight is “razor close…”
It is said of Rodriguez that “he was so stylish that Muhammad Ali incorporated many of his moves into his repertoire,” as both men trained at Miami’s 5th Street Gym.
1963 – Wins the welterweight title in a unanimous decision over Emile Griffith.
Sources:BestoCubanBoxers/Youtube/InternetPhotos/thecubanhistory.com
BestCubansBoxers/The Cuban History/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor