36 years ago today: Frederick "Fearless Freddie" Howard Pendleton vs. Samuel "Sammy/Mangani" Fuentes

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I've seen TR make this claim of "fastest KO in boxing" numerous times on various social media platforms. To be clear: it isn't, but it is up there. Things get a little muddy depending on how you want to define things, but this one is in the books as ending 15 seconds into the first round. I know at least Jimmy Thunder vs. Crawford Grimsley has that beat by 2 seconds.

Now, in Thunder vs. Grimsley, it lasted 13 but was essentially over within 3 seconds, and the ref then gave Grimsley the benefit of a full ten count. As for Pendleton vs. Fuentes, for my money you could argue anywhere between 10 and 15 seconds - but the official record books show the latter.

Sequence of events:

1. 0:0:29.5 into the video above - bell rings to start the fight
2. 0:0:31 - Freddie lands the first right hand.
3. 0:0:33 - Freddie lands another right.
   
4. 0:0:34 - Freddie misse a left hook.
   
5. 0:0:34.5 - Fuentes desperately clinches
   
6. 0:0:35 - the single whitest boxing commentary call I have heard in my entire life, "let's just hang on a moment heeere!"
   
7. 0:0:37 - Fuentes gets lucky leaning away from a left hook.
   
8. 0:0:38 - Freddie lands one more big right hand, then starts flurrying, Fuentes already flopping half-consciously between the ropes.
   
9. 0:0:39.5 - Joe Cortez starts grabbing to pull Pendleton aside and rescue Fuentes
   
10. 0:0:42 - Cortez pauses and gives Fuentes a hard look, doing the mental calculus of whether a ten count is worth bothering with.
    
11. 0:0:43 - Cortez's mind seems to be made up but he has to help Fuentes from falling.
    
12. 0:0:44 - Cortez's hand goes up waving to halt the contest, about 14.5 seconds from its start.

There are some other < 20 second fights that you could niggle over in terms of "where precisely do you draw the line", but Thunder vs. Grimsley at least does still outrank this however you carve it up.


What a deadly right prime Freddie had, though. I only caught the very tail end of his career as a gatekeeper of steadily decreasingly reliability at light welter and welter, but boy could he go down at LW (ask Páez!) as poor lamb to slaughter Sammy found out.

Of course, to be fair, Fuentes had gone nine rounds with Black Mamba just a few bouts prior (so maybe his handlers had false faith in him hanging around a while) but Mayweather also had him hurt badly in pretty much every round until finally dropping him with an uppercut and forcing the corner retirement. Roger, ironically, had then been on the mend following his own KO defeat to none other than...Freddie Pendleton.

 

Hate to say it, but the only claim to fame Fuentes really has in the sport is the litany of former & future world champs that shellacked him.

Nazario, Randall, Mayweather, Pendleton, JCC, Tszyu, Parisi, and Maestrito López.

Still, far more than most are able to tell their grandkids.