Jose Napoles; Kid Rapidez's love letter to Kid Chocolate.

I mentioned recently to @Ioakeim Tzortzakis that I saw a few connections between the styles of Jose Napoles and Kid Chocolate. More specifically, it seems to me, as if Jose Napoles built the base of his style upon Kid Chocolate's, then refined it to perfection.

Kid Chocolate was indeed a boxing phenom, being heavily influential on Ezzard Charles, Kid Gavilan and Ray Robinson, whose styles virtually defined the 40s. While it's my understanding Kid Chocolate's role in boxing history was forgotten by the Cuban Government until the seventies (I think?), did Chocolate and later Gavilan's success play a role in how Cuban's trained during this time? Other well known Cubans around this time are namely Benny Paret, Luis Rodriguez, Jose Legra and Sugar Ramos. To my eye, likeness to Kid Chocolate can clearly be found in all except Rodriguez.

Napoles' boxing started in Cuba, with his first 20 or so fights taking place there. He trained under Kid Rapidez in Cuba, and remained with him when they fled to Mexico following Castro's banning of boxing. Kid Rapidez worked at Havana's National Academy of Boxing. Havana, incidentally, is also the hometown of Kid Chocolate, and fought he spent most of his career. Kid Rapidez's other main, pro disciple was Sugar Ramos. Ramos himself possessed a few Chocolate-isms. The way he jitters his movement to hide his approach; the way his stance widens around his opponent to prevent them from moving away, to the long-arm combinations he starts from the outside, only to finish on the side with nasty shovel hooks and head-control. Even his jab looks reminiscent of Chocolate's. I believe Rapidez helped hone his students in the direction of Kid Chocolate, only a more advanced version. Another tie here is that Kid Chocolate is clearly the inspiration of the name Kid Rapidez, whose real name is printed as Alfredo Cruz in the linked article.

Rambling aside, what I made this thread for is to find the stylistic comparisons between Kid Chocolate and Jose Napoles.

The defining tool the Kid used the most was his L-step back; wherein he quickly brings the heal of his front foot back to the side of his rear foot, allowing him to step out fluidly in any direction. Chocolate primarily used it to step out of range then back into it, crowding his opponents and smothering them with his lead shoulder and looking for hooks on the opponent's blindside. Whilst boxing with an opponent, Napoles employed this manoeuvre several times, to decent success. Against Hedgemon Lewis, for example, he used it to quickly step out of range and move away from the ropes, whereas against Curtis Cokes, he used to cut off the angles Cokes tried to take. Kid Chocolate liked to wrestle on the inside, which really wasn't Napoles' game, so instead, Napoles refined the smothering tactics to incorporate head-movement, and allowed for smooth transitions between left and right.

Kid Chocolate loved to jab his opponents on the way out, and when he did, he turned his whole body into it, torquing his shoulder into the punch. As mentioned, Sugar Ramos liked to jab like this and so did Napoles. Napoles especially liked to shift his weight back and forth, and every now and then he would snap his jab on the rebound, timing opponents on the way in. This is again seen in Napoles' first fight with Lewis, which is a very interesting technical fight.

I mentioned Napoles' tendancy to shift his weight back and forth, which was spoken about in Ioakiem's thread. Shifting one's weight is done by bringing the centre of gravity back and forth over the hips. This can be done by shifting the hips, or the waist. Napoles did this motion at the hips, but Chocolate did it at the waist; pulling back and forth as he threw, leading to some beautifully timed counters. Napoles' KO of Ernie Lopez was set up in exactly this fashion, and there is dozens of instances of Napoles performing this manoeuvre. Off the top of my head he did it a bunch against Backus and Pruitt.

Another thing Kid Chocolate loved to do, was angle his body around one of his opponent's arms, and flail his free hand to the body like a whip. Virtually every time Napoles got into range, he stepped around his opponents into favourable angles and unloaded with beautiful combinations. Almost exactly the same way as Kid Chocolate, only with better form, and a more consistent control of distance.

Chocolate's preffered method of defence in the pocket was the bob, where he usually ducked beneath a hook or cross, only to come back with a wild overhand or hook of his own. With his head significantly lower than his opponents, his centre of gravity is to, which allows a fighter to dictate the way the other fighter is looking, and where their blind spots are. Napoles himself employed this method of head-control, as well as bobbing down into a crouch, only to spring back in with a bigger, badder shot.

The core styles of Napoles and Kid Chocolate are strikingly similar, but the execution of Napoles' game was much more technically refined, and his execution of the style was certainly better. But Kid Chocolate's influence is all-over Napoles', and Sugar Ramos', game. Kid Rapidez did a wonderful job with them both. I believe more footage of the pair's earlier career would reveal them to be even more liken-able to Chocolate; as they both would've come into their own as they progressed and Napoles especially faced significant physical challenges like height, which his style had to accomodate.

The mentioned similarities are easily seen in these two highlight reels.

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https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,905624,00.html

As an aside, Kid Rapidez was absolutely mental. He was a believer in some voodoo type religion, and performed sacrificical rites before fights. For example, in Who Killed Davey Moore, they talk about him sacrificing a chicken in the shower prior to the Ramos fight.

 

Posts like these are why you're one of the best posters here. Very rarely is such quality and depth seen on this forum.

 

Nice one, mate. Especially coming from yourself.

 

To be frank, I actually think Kid Gavilan was a closer to resemblance to Kid Chocolate, but that's obvious. Napoles never really gets paired with him and all of the pieces are there IMO.

Not that it means anything

 

It's an absolute war crime for such a thread to be treated with such indifference. Stop arguing about Heavyweight match ups for just 5 minutes and give this thread the attention it deserves, damn it.

 

George Crowcroft is one of the few posters that made me decide to come back to posting.

Fantastic insights - I find Mantequilla's subtle shifting of weight to be so smooth and efficient, yet, really difficult to replicate with correct timing. Never, have I thought to connect the dots back to Chocolate in the ways that you have - kudos!

 

Great stuff George! Looks like I have some fights to watch. I haven't watched Napoles in a while but they guy was just an amazing technician and you can definitely see the similarity with his style and the rise of the Cuban amateur program that really took off in the 70's. I have always had a deep appreciation for the contributions to the sport from that island.

 

Let's be honest, I knew this was gonna happen

 

Thank you sir!

 

Even today, Cuba has its boxing set up is still the best way for young fighters to develop IMO.

 

Yep, they still produce outstanding fighters for such a small country. Lara is about the most avoided guys out there today. None of the top guys will go near him.

 

Yeah, it's to be expected. I made a Kid Gavilan career dive a few weeks ago, and literally only 1 person responded, and that was after I had already bumped the thread . My Jose Napoles career dive only got like 3 responses or so as well, and Marvin Hagler's, the second most beloved fighter on the forum according to Rummy's servey, only got 6

Wait until I eventually drop that Harry Greb career dive, whenever I decide to finally do it. Then we'll really know where everyone's intentions lie

 

Yeah, they're probably the country who produce the most high risk low reward type fighters. I mean, even Napoles and Gavilan were considered as such. In the modern era, you only have to look at a guy like Rigo to see it's still the case.

 

It's just the quality of the OPs. What more is there to say?

 

You're never going to see such a event