Credit to @Badbot for finally lighting the fire under my ass to make a career retrospective thread on the coolest cat (as in human...or reptile) named Denver since The Last Dinosaur: This content is protected ...and in many pundits' opinion, among the very best fighters in the bottom-of-the-scales range (straw through super fly) to, for whatever reason, never manage to bag "the big one" in the millennium so far. He lost in what is probably going to go down in the books as his final bout against fellow Pinoy southpaw Jesse Olibero "Little Giant" Espinas nearly 3½ years ago. With all due respect to Espinas, that is someone most observers agree would have been light work for Cuello nearer the beginning of that decade. Between the ages of 9 and 17 he racked up a wunderkind 76-7 amateur record but early adulthood was far more of a struggle in-ring as he began his pro campaign. He boasted a pedestrian record of merely 14-3-6 (6) when he fought countryman Michael Villarma "Wildcard" Landero in 2008, but over the next half-decade would embark on an excellent run of form, going on a 19-1 (15) tear and ensconcing himself in the rankings for most of that span. During that five year run in his prime, he arguably should have been 21-0 instead of 19-2. He faced unlucky setbacks in both a 2010 minimumweight championship eliminator versus Juan Hernández "Churritos" Navarrete and in his eventual challenge for that same WBC belt three years later against Chaozhong Xiong. In the former - an exemplary case study in how messy and chaotic an orthodox vs. southpaw battle can be when both have somewhat recklessly aggressive styles - Cuello had suffered a flash knockdown in the second round. His ankles crossed with Hernández's but the Mexican ref (former amateur boxer Gerardo "Mister Knockout" Venzor Terrazas, a boxer from Chihuhua but whose BoxRec profile lists him as "Jerry Venzor" and only mentions his American citizenship and current residence in El Paso) decided to give him the count. In the following round, Cuello began timing Hernández's in-and-out hops and scored a left uppercut on the body that caused a delayed reaction knockdown. What happened next was confusing in the moment and difficult to parse out with much certainty even now more than a dozen years later. Cuello followed Hernández across the ring, and seemed to be winding up another left uppercut downstairs. Hernández dropped to a knee very abruptly with little about his body language telegraphing such a move as he retreated. Cuello let the punch fly, and it seemed to whack Hernández in the head, after which he toppled over and remained on the canvas awhile. Cuello and his team had been celebrating what they believed to be a KO victory for a few minutes when it was announced that he lost via disqualification. Now, the DQ isn't totally unreasonable as he did hit a downed opponent, but in my opinion it was just Cuello being unable to curb his momentum rather than a deliberate foul - with both Hernández (with his long delay in taking a knee, and how suddenly he did so) and lazy officiating by Venzor (being positioned too far away from the fighters to intervene timely enough when Hernández did go to a knee) bearing some blame for what happened. At the very least, the outcome warranted a rematch to settle the issue of who the better man was. It didn't pan out; instead Hernández got to challenge the following year for Kazuto Ioka's title and Cuello for his part had to start a slow rebuilding process, racking up a dozen wins before he got his shot. When he did get that shot, many believe he did enough to defeat the diminutive incumbent (originally nicknamed "The Chinese Tyson", later replaced with "Little Bear" and "Pocket Hercules") with accurate pot shot left hand leads alone. Cuello lost a majority decision in spite of Xiong suffering both a knockdown and point deduction for a headbutt. The scoring in terms of rounds could have gone in either direction or reasonably have been a draw - but considering the fact that Cuello fought the whole contest literally one-handed (throwing exclusively his left, as he came in with an injury to his right arm) just holding the champ to an MD in defeat should have justly earned him a rematch to give it a try at 100%. Alas, once again, one never materialized. Xiong would lose his strap in his second defense in a major upset at the hands of Mexican journeyman Oswaldo Novoa eight months later, and Cuello would never again contend. Injuries - and mismanagement (both factors resulting in significant time spent on the shelf) - would continue to be running themes for the remainder of Cuello's time in the ring. He never again regained the alphabet org ranking or stature among diehard boxing nerds that he possessed at his absolute best from 2008 until 2013. Cuello vs. Hernández Navarrete: This content is protected Cuello vs. Muhammad Rachman: borked (AsianBoxing.info set it to private for some reason ) Cuello vs. Takashi Kunishige: This content is protected Cuello vs. Xiong: This content is protected Cuello vs. Espinas: This content is protected He's only 36 now, so a comeback isn't completely beyond question (although it would be pushing the limits of how late you can reasonably mount a run at contention in his weight range) - but given the layoff and given how slow & gun-shy he looked against Espinas in 2019, he probably ought to be done. His body of work stands as-is - fun, but deeply unsatisfying in view of him very possibly having been for a time uncrowned and yet "the man" at 105lbs.
Maybe he would have gotten more breaks if he traded middle names with Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Denver Montgomery Cuello sounds pretty baller.
Bravo! And I forgot all about Oswaldo Novoa and how big of an upset that was. He even managed a title defense and then kickstarted Wanheng´s long reign atop of the division. Cuello was such a blast for the brief few years I got to follow him. A real shame his career went the way it did.
Great thread. Cuello was one of the best Filipino fighters around at his peak. He definitely should have been a world champion. The way he dismantled future world champ Ganigan Lopez in two rounds on the road was probably the best performance of his career. I might be misremembering, but I think I did score his lone world title fight against him or had it a draw, so I wasn’t furious that he didn’t get that decision. I was just frustrated that he got injured because he would have stopped Xiong easily and gotten the recognition he deserved. Alas, like you said, poor management. I think Aljoe Jaro was his manager and he isn’t exactly atop the managerial tree domestically, although I think he did help Sonny Boy Jaro (no relation) achieve world champion status.
That actually would be interesting. Buttigieg is said to stand 5'10" and walks around roughly the fight night weight of a middleweight (so a dehydrated welter). Untrained politician vs. elite strawweight. I'd buy that on PPV.
Just such a bummer - he clearly looked the better man overall versus both Hernández and Xiong, and both of them went on to blow it their very next time competing for a world title. Give him the spot versus Novoa, that's a shoe-in dub for Cuello. Now, does he beat the somewhat green but already world class Ioka that Hernández fought? Eh, much as I do like Cuello that's a big ask. It was only ten months later that even Akira Yaegashi couldn't get the job done.
Balancing things out a bit, since the majority of videos in the OP are defeats, here is his nice victory over eventual WBC light flyweight titlist Ganigan "El Maravilla" López: This content is protected Damn shame that a couple of his other best results are unavailable to view online. The aforementioned Rachman bout is set to private, but his stoppage of Wittawas Basapean aka Samartlek Kokietgym doesn't appear to be uploaded anywhere. The latter actually even had @CST80 briefly unconvinced about Naoya Inoue's power back in the day, as it took him a couple of rounds longer than Cuello to dispatch Basapean. (this was, tbf, just two years into his pro career before his true Monster potential began to manifest)
