The forgotten disciple of Cus D'Amato. How good was Torres? Could he beat Charles, Foster, Qawi, Moore and company (you know who company is)? Or is he a tier or 2 below them?
The latter. He was shielded from a tough era of MWs until finally facing Florentino Fernandez (who was a notch or 2 below the elite of his era) & was bombed out in 5. He then moved up & won the LHW title during a rather weak window, then lost it when one of the MWs that he previously avoided followed him up in weight & beat him twice. After losing his title, the only thing of note that he did was barely survive getting KO'd by a fighter that was literally pulled out of the stands.
The fighter that he was originally scheduled to fight either didn't show or backed out at the last minute, & Charlie "Devil" Green (who was sitting in the audience as a spectator) was asked to step in & replace him. He jumped on Torres early & dropped him a couple times before Torres rallied to KO him in round 2.
If ever there was a "cheese champion", it was him. I think he was managed very carefully by D' Amato. The few times he stepped up, (as has already been stated by another poster), he lost. If Paret got a "draw" against him in Puerto Rico, I'll bet he was robbed. He won the title against Pastrano, (in Willie's very last fight), a guy with no punch who was at the end of the line. Torres could not have been matched easier. Then of course was the two losses to Tiger, a middleweight.
Jose Torres wasn’t ever the apex predator of any weight class at any time I don’t think. Honest pro though and he won the belt.
No he doesn't beat them. Torres was held back by D'Amato, he should have gone for the middleweight title.
Torres was supposed to fight Paul Pender for his slice of the middleweight title in November 1962 (though the NYSAC refused to sanction it as a defence since Torres was unranked). It fell through because Cus D'Amato couldn't come up with the $100,000 he'd promised as Pender's guarantee.
From what little Ive seen of him he certainly had talent. I heard his fight with Eddie Cotton (whom during the 90s I believed was the person who popped up as a referee so many times in that decade lol, thank you Wikipedia for existing!) was a big time robbery. I also read on The Ring: Boxing in the 29th Century, that his second loss to Tiger was absolutely a robbery that the NYSAC should have reverted and that there was a riot at the MSG after the decision. I cant say because I havent seen any of those fights and boxing is subjective as far as close fights go. I havent also seen the Paret fight... But a guy who only lost 3 times, once questionably, and got knocked out only once, by horse-like hitter Florentino Fernandez, can't surely be that bad!
I never thought real highly of him. Skilled enough, and certainly well connected, but nothing to write home about. He had everything he needed to beat Tiger; youth, speed, power, faster hands. But he waited and waited..........then waited some more. He let the title slip away through sheer hesitation. I just shook my head watching it. Very poor efforts.
It was said that he lost interest in boxing after he started palling around with author/journalists Pete Hamill and Norman Mailer and they helped him become a published writer. He was a good fighter with fast hands and a fine combination puncher in the exciting Cus D'Amato peekaboo style.
Pretty fair prize fighter, IMO his status got a little ahead of his skis after he became a writer and a boxing pundit.
From memory, I thought both of those decisions were fair, even if the audiences didn't approve of either one.
