Dr Ferdie Pacheco

I thought he could be seriously pompous as others have accurately pointed out, I recall him doing a couple of things that give him some credit. He had went to Ali late in his career before the Spinks fight and told him to stop as he had absorbed too much damage and showed him the video through the years of his decline and Ali shrugged it off. Pacheco decided to quit rather than watch him continue.. and Ali told him years later at an event that,,"You were right" too late. He also commented on the 1st Duran Leonard fight , he said the plan was to go out and pressure Duran and take him out early inside 4 or 5 rounds . After all Duran was moving up in weight against a bigger, younger ,faster opponent and Ray it was thought hit harder at 147 pounds than Duran would . He underestimated the greatest lightweight of all time.
Pacheco intimated that the old story that Ray fought the wrong fight was invented afterwards. He fought the 1st fight exactly like He and Angelo Dundee wanted ...

 

Pretty spot on point … I remember it

 

He said Frazier was dumb in hos book Fight Doctor. He also talked too much about Ali’s sex life and that had him lose face in the entourage .

 

Always struck me as a *****

 

He was an ass who was constantly putting his foot in his mouth.

 

Sporttscasters get a bad rep a lot of the time. Funny because among the famous people I met, the few sportscasters I met (which I can count with the fingers of my left hand) I was never turned down for an autograph by any, Barry Tompkins being the nicest of the pure, non athlete sportscasters I met. Walt Frazier and Sean O Grady were super nice too but they were athletes ..lol

I never met Pacheco in person but he had a nice voice IMO and knew his boxing He could have been a GREAT trainer and was, obviously, a very smart man. That does not mean he was a good guy or not.

I hate hearing Don Dunphy's voice, and consider him boring. I never met him. That I find him boring does not mean he was a bad person.

In other words I really dont dislike them or have an opinion on them personally.

As sportscasters, however, i prefer Pacheco to some of the others.

You know who I saw in person but could not approach for an autograph? Steve Albert. He was working for the Phoenix Suns when I attended a game between them and the Memphis Grizzlies (won by the Suns with a last second shot, 102-100, my first and only "last second shot" game unless you count video games lol) Same with Sylvester Stallone. He and I both went to the Tszyu-Mitchell rematch, with Stallone being in front of me but protected by bodyguards.

PS: I did hate when Pacheco said Gerard McClellan was quitting and when I hear he called Joe Frazier ignorant, I cringe. Frazier if anything was a smart man and when you step on his boots, maybe you'd be angry at Muhammad Ali too for the things he called you. I know he only did it to promote the bouts and that he tried to make over to Joe afterwards, but even if I laugh here and there about the things Ali did with opponents, calling Frazier a gorilla considering the ramifications, was cringe-worthy. On the other hand, I loved that Pacheco seemed concerned with McClellan after learning the facts and with Luis Santana, even yelling at the referee in Santana's case.

Oh and double PS: Dad seemed to think Pacheco was anti-Puerto Rcan. I fail to see this.

 

I do have one more off-topic and ultimately inconsequential Ferdie story (seems like I remember every once in a while a boxer would call him Freddie, and you could see it annoyed/triggered him, haha) that I came across a few years ago.

My work would take me to Orlando or Tampa usually about once a year, and both have versions of a wonderful Cuban restaurant called Columbia. It’s a really nice, not super-upscale but not cheap sit-down restaurant with lots of seafood and other offerings served Cuban style (and literally the only restaurant I ever tell people, ‘you have to get the salad’ — they do something called a 1905 salad (in honor of the year of the original restaurant opening, I think in Ybor City, the Cuban conclave in Tampa) that they mix tableside that is just awesome with ham and all sorts of ingredients.

Well, it seems Pacheco was friends with the family that owns the small chain. When our group was there a few years ago waiting for our table, I wandered into the gift shop and was flipping through their cookbook with all their recipes … and realize that none other than Ferdie wrote the introduction/foreword.

I almost bought it, but thought about it and I’m a pretty simple cook so I wouldn’t have probably ever actually used it so I didn’t. But I thought that was cool.

So whatever I may think about Ferdie, he had great taste in food. Columbia is one of my favorite dining experiences.

 

Pacheco had suffered a series of strokes later in life. Who knows...maybe it affected his cognition. He was 80 or so in 2008 when that HBO documentary aired. You can hear in the documentary that his speech is garbled, and his emotions are all over the place. I never heard him speak ill of Frazier in any earlier documentaries. I believe he did say something about when Ali referred to Frazier as a "Gorilla" when he interviewed elsewhere. But he was only repeating what Ali had said.

 

I never cared for "The Fight Doctor" as a commentator. As many others have stated-Pacheco was a pompous gasbag!!

Now Gil Clancy on the other hand--FABULOUS! (I still say Clancy and Tim Ryan were the gold standard for boxing broadcasters. They were awesome!!)

 

I just never really liked him and I thought he ruined some great fights having to listen to him.
I liked Clancy, Bernstein, and would have loved if Bernstein would have gotten the NBC gig.

 

I absolutely loved when Bernstein and Clancy would work together on occasion.
And I think your right Gil and Tim were great.

 

Good call on Bernstein-he was also a great boxing commentator! (But Gil and Tim were my all-time favorites to this day!!)

 

I ate at the one in Orlando on South Semoran Blvd.

 

That documentary is where the suggestion that Ali was going to quit was made. I can understand why Ferdie was emotional.