Excellent and fun fighter to watch from back in the day. Wins over R. Mayweather, James Page, Ray Oliveira and Bolillo Gonzalez among others. Career cut short. Only beaten once and that was in his first, aborted run at a career. How much further could he have gone? Whatever happened to him? Appreciate!
I saw a picture of him a few days ago in the gym in Azusa and he looks like he has been eating well. He beat Bolillo Gonzalez when I didn't think he would.
I was a fan. He was a force of nature. I recall hyping Gonzalez up because he was a huge puncher. Then my uncle and I watched Padilla just take it to him. He would have been a champion, he was hard to beat.
KO magazine did an awesome profile on him right after his win over Carlos Gonzalez. Evidently he burned out badly on boxing midway through his career, before he went on his title run. According to him and his manager, he had a series of severe weight cuts that sucked away his enthusiasm, and he kind of got overwhelmed and quit the game. He worked construction for quite a while. Eventually he got his family life dialed in and he matured and his wife persuaded him to give boxing another try. And obviously that was brilliant, life changing advice.
I thought his career ended prematurely after he was injured in a sparring session with Shane Mosley? A pity because as stated he was fun as hell to watch and had a punch output that was off the charts. He simply wore poor Juan LaPorte out (only stoppage loss of his career). His bout with Ray Olivera held the punchstat record for a long time too (I don't know if it still does). A top fight it was too from memory might look it up again.
Fun to watch and his bout with Mayweather was awsome. He also beat Ricky Myers who at the time had Tysons trainer and they were building Ricky up. Prime Padilla vs Hatton would have been an incredible fight.
This guy improved greatly in his second incarnation. I saw him on ESPN in the late 80s get stopped in a 135 lb clubfight He was out of action a few years and ballooned up in weight. Then he decided to give it a second go and succeeded mainly through his incredible conditioning, which allowed him to out last good opponents by maintaining an incredible workrate through 12 rounds. I think he achieved about as much as he could, even though his career was cut short after he suffered a head injury in sparring with Shane Moseley. A matchup with JC Chavez or Frankie Randall would have been interesting in late 1994 or 1995 but it is doubtful he would have beaten either. He may have been more successful against Tzyu at that juncture.
Padilla was well schooled ax well- he wasnt some wild brawler. Watch his bout with with Gonzalez and see how he moves.
I had a lot of time for the Zack attack. I think his punch numbers for the bouts in his title reign still are at or near top of the all time list nearly three decades on. I thought as mention a sparring incident led to a diagnosis of a brain aneurysm, and thus retirement.
