1964 Jose Napoles destroys the Top Lightweights - Entering 1964 with a record of 33-3-0 (16 KO's) - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 1.......KO 1.....Taketuru Yoshimoto.....21-9-6 (3 KO's) (In Japan, on the undercard of Sugar Ramos vs. Mitsunori Seki - World Featherweight Championship) April 25......TKO 1.....Alfredo 'Canelo' Urbina.....40-11-3 (23 KO's) (The #1 World-ranked Lightweight) June 22......TKO 7.....Carlos 'Morocho' Hernandez....34-3-3 (22 KO's) (The #2 World-ranked Lightweight, in Caracas, Venezuela) August 15...TKO 5.....Eduardo 'Lalo' Moreno.....19-0-3 (6 KO's) (The #10 World-ranked Lightweight) November 14...KO 3....Alfredo 'Canelo' Urbina......42-13-3 (25 KO's) (The #2 World-ranked Lightweight) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Napoles, the 24 year-old, now...38-3-0 (21 KO's), and the #1 World-ranked Lightweight. I don't think Carols Ortiz was doing any 'back-flips' in trying to defend his Lightweight Championship versus Jose Napoles.
Well, he was defending his title against the worthy Kenny Lane in 64 and then losing and defending his title against the worthy Ismael Laguna in 65. Napoles would have been well served to fight one of those two instead of moving up and having all his subsequent fights at 140. Ortiz might not have been knocking down his door for a fight, but Napoles didn't do everything he could to secure it either.
At the end of 1964, Jose Napoles was clearly the #1 Lightweight / #1 Light-Welterweight In early 1965, 'Knockouts' over (KO 5) Carlos Rios, and (KO 3) LC Morgan put Jose at 40-3-0 (23 KO's) and riding '10-straight' knockouts. Setting up a March 25, 1965 bout in Caracas, Venezuela against the top European Lightweight, Italian Lightweight Champion - Giordano Campari 77-12-4 (30 KO's). The 5' 8 1/2" Italiano claimed, 'I will box circles around this Cuban. He has no style or class. I will teach him about proper European style boxing. His raw bull-charging will do him no good against a pure boxer like myself.'
Hes no whitaker, because he doesnt want to be a whitaker. I love his style of fighting, a highly skilled and smooth warrior. I think Napoles, Duran and Whitaker are probably the 3 best natural '135/140' fighters in the last 50 years though. Duran vs napoles would have been a fight for the ages, could have happened in 1974 instead of the napoles-monzon mismatch.
Jose Napoles, Could have easily been a '4 weight class champion' * 1965 - Lightweight * 1966 - Light-Welterweight * 1969 - Welterweight * 1971 - Light-Middleweight
Yup I agree, I value stoppage wins over bigger fighters and napoles has alot of them. For a former lightweight like him to clean out the welterweight division is just incredible.
Jose Napoles March 25, 1965.......TKO 2.........#8 Lightweight - Giordano Campari...77-12-4 The 30 year-old Italian Lightweight - Campari was bounced all over the Caracas, Venezuela ring. Jose scored his '11th straight' Knockout. Cuco Conde spent the next 4-months trying to get the #1 Lightweight in the World, a Championship bout. But Carlos Ortiz and Ismael Laguna played 'Tag with the Championship'
Cuco Conde, gave up on trying to get Jose Napoles a shot at the Lightweight Championship, and moved the goal to the 140 lb. Light-Welterweight Division in mid-1965. Carlos Ortiz was not going to fight Jose Napoles (ever), and new Lightweight Champion Ismael Laguna was the smartest cat around, and knew avoiding Napoles was the 'smart' thing to do.
I agree, given that Napoles put himself in the no.1 contender position, there was no way he was ever going to force a fight with Carlos Ortiz. It was impossible and much more fruitful to do what he did for the next 3 years.