Zack Padilla

Yes. Early 1990s, watching him on ESPN. I think the first time I saw him he was fighting Ricky Meyers and it was sort of a comeback fight for Padilla. Meyers had been winning (another guy who disappeared) and I recall Padilla saying before the fight that he didn't come all this way to lose. He won that night and put together a nice little string of wins against Roger Mayweather and Carlos Gonzalez before disappearing himself.

He threw a lot of punches and was very busy. Apparently he suffered a head injury in training and that ended his career.

 

Remember him well. His fight with Ray Olivera broke punch stat records at the time, he was moving up the rankings at junior welter and then it was suddenly over - retired early due to a head injury. Exciting fighter.

 

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...7-zachary-padilla-vs-roger-mayweather.628990/

 

I remember him. I believe he had an early loss and took a few years off. I remember hearing that he dropped around 100 pounds before making a comeback. I don't remember him being much of a puncher, but he did have tremendous stamina. Good fighter.

 

A relatively light puncher but kept a great pace, threw a lot of punches, had solid boxing skills, and took a great punch. If you weren't prepared for a very fast pace with a lot of punches coming your way, you were going to get outpointed by him. He outpointed a young 7-0 James Page, 43-8 Roger Mayweather, then undefeated 36-0 Carlos "Bolillo" Gonzalez (perhaps Padilla's most outstanding/impressive performance) to win the WBO super lightweight title, the aforementioned Ray Oliveira, and forced aging 40-13-1 Juan LaPorte to retire, the only stoppage loss of LaPorte's entire career. That was Padilla's final fight in a 9-year career.

 

He suffered a brain hemorage and alot of people think it was brought on by his always sparring a young Shane Mosley.
His first huge win was when he beat up Ricky Myers on ESPN.
He had insane stamina and never stopped throwing to go along with a strong chin and he threw in combinations.
Very good boxer.

 

I clearly remember the Carlos Gonzalez fight….Zack would alternate his strategy each round, so one round he would go toe to toe, then next he’d box on the move, and he kept doing that switch the whole fight. Bolillo seemed stumped.

 

Just watched his fight with Roger Mayweather off this thread's rec, amazing scrap.

 

Zack Padilla was a very good fighter with an insane cardio and could throw hundreds of punches a round. Wasn’t some predictable brawler and his great performance against González showed how much potential he had. Sad that his career ended up cutting short.

 

Whats surprising was that he gained close to 200 pound during his 5 year layoff and his wife actually convinced him to get back into boxing.