ATG BANTAMWEIGHT TOURNIE: Round 1, Fight 2 - CHUCHO CASTILLO UD15 MANUEL ORTIZ

Little early for a coin flip, isn't it?

Chuch Castillo (seeded 15) was a blank-faced box-punching genius mixed with a level of competition equal of any who appear in this tournament. He served a desperate apprenticeship among the massed banditry of the exceptional and crowded bantamweight ranks in 1960s Mexico, breaking out in 1967 and winning the Mexican bantamweight title. This was no normal national level belt and was held at that time by none other than Jose Medel. Castillo, had now broken onto the world scene, but and continued to duke it out with the best on the Mexican scene even as his assault upon the world championship began.

“He would fight a bull with a fork,” as one promoter put it, and truly, Castillo left no stone unturned in his mission to become the world’s best.

Before he could reach the champion he needed to best the division’s boogeyman, Jesus Pimentel. This, he did, upsetting the odds and wowing a big crowd at The Forum in Los Angeles on his American debut, handing Pimentel a one-sided pummelling. The great Lionel Rose held the title and, once more at the Forum where he had succeeded in making himself something of a fan favorite, Castillo got his shot.

Ringside reporters were, according to The Press-Courier, split evenly as to the winner; the judges, too, were split, but the heavy end of the decision went to Rose. The LA crowd rioted and two-hundred police officers were dispatched to place them under control. Castillo continued to riot, too. Just four months after his failed title shot he knocked out the all-time great Rafael Herrera, as though he were nothing, in just three rounds. Another title shot, then, was inevitable. To take the championship, all Castillo had to do was defeat perhaps the single best bantamweight ever to have boxed.

Ruben Olivares was riding a thirty fight knockout streak but found himself on the ground looking up after just three rounds against Castillo. Olivares was very far from being a fighter reliant upon his power, however, and he ground down Castillo for the decision. In the rematch, he dropped Olivares again his right hand, by now perfected, the best in the division’s history for me, and it makes him a technician of the highest order as well as the tank he is reputed to be. Olivares was stopped on a cut, a single point behind on a single card, in the fourteenth round. Castillo was the champion; not a great one, but one of the greatest contenders in boxing history.

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The statistics associated with the career of Manuel Ortiz (seeded two) are astonishing. He reigned in nine calendar years in two spells between 1942 and 1950. His record in title fights is twenty-one and two. He is one of the few men on this list to have conquered so many ranked contenders as to require double digits for accurate depiction. He beat the best fighter in the world excepting himself on multiple occasions.

In more than 130 fights he was stopped just once, on cuts. He himself dished out more than fifty stoppages despite a dearth of power, his excellence in dissecting his opposition often resulting in their crumbling. He took the title from the borderline all-time great bantamweight Lou Salica in 1942. It was easy. I haven’t seen a report that gives Salica more than three of the fifteen rounds. I also haven’t seen the fight. Key fights belonging to Manuel Ortiz are tough to come by in a way I just can’t explain. It’s heartbreaking because few were so brilliant. You can see his third meeting with Luis Castillo, which is important, because that was a part of perhaps the best bantamweight run in history. Between his revenge win over Tony Olivera in 1942 and the summer of 1946, he lost just once, up at featherweight, to a fighter named Willie Pep. Title defenses abounded against a huge variety of styles and Ortiz turned them all away, often with ease.

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Round one and we are matching arguably the greatest bantamweight contender in history against arguably the best bantamweight champion in history. Who will win under the following rules?

15 round fight.
1950s referee.
8oz boxing gloves.

Cast your vote and explain yourself in a post below! You have 3 days.

 

OK i'm going for Chucho. I think he beat better guys, and he slightly impresses me more on film which is a little unfair because there's so much more of Castillo and it inevitably builds a picture of a certain sort in my head. Maybe a little less quick, chin not as good, but the rest, for me, all favours Castillo. I think very early doors it would be impossible to call this fight, rounds desperately close, occasionally landing harder punches deciding the rounds. Into the sixth though, I reckon, you'd start to see Castillo timing the jab and some bodyshots.

Narrow but clear UD for Chucho.

 

It's on a knife-edge; twenty hours remain!

 

Chucho Castillo advances to the quarter finals after a desperately close split victory over Manuel Ortiz that split ringsiders down the middle as to the validity of the decision. Ortiz seemed to edge many of the early rounds but the action became sparodic and difficult to score in the controversial middle rounds before Castillo found the timing on hurtful jabs to appear to grab many of the late rounds. The fight remained in the balance at the bell for the fifteenth round with a majority draw possible if Ortiz had swept it, but two out of three judges liked Castillo's jab over Ortiz's fatigued infighting.

It's a shock to see a fighter who was the betting favourite in California and Mexico eliminated in the first round, but Chucho was always going to be a nightmarish draw for whichever top seed landed them. The feeling is that if they met in a rematch the result could be different, but it's onto the next for Castillo and back to the drawing board for the mighty Ortiz.