Jose Napoles Resumè

As a welterweight yes. I don't think he'd fought at the weight for 4 years when he lost to Napoles. But he was definitely a fighter who fought great way past his prime. I personally think the Monzon fight* is far closer than the Napoles fight.

* Edit- the rematch of course.

 

It existed intermittently in magazines and the like but didn't become regular until KO/World Boxing until 1984. Napoles (like Jofre and Robinson the previous two decades) was the fighter routinely called boxing best pfp during most of his title reign. Cokes may have sneaked in lower top 10, i'd say.

 

He'd definitely have been on there around De La Hoya's time.

 

Its as solid as it gets , especially being avoided at times

 

As far as being a top ten p4p goes (which didn't really exist in it's current form), between 66 and 69, Cokes had to contend with the likes of Ali, Foster, Griffith, Rodriguez, Benvenuti, Ortiz, Saldivar, Harada, Rose, Locche, Rodriguez, Laguna, Ebihara, Torres, Accavallo Legra, Famechon, Winstone, Elorde, Tiger (old though he was), Mando Ramos, Teo Cruz and so on.

That's a good bit harder imo than cracking being a top ten fighter in the mid nineties.

 

Mike, I loved your observations on Napoles, especially the squat he would perform before the next round. Something I've seen many times but just never acknowledged consciously. A couple of other things to mention about him was that bad-ass mustache and as the rounds progressed how it would get coated in vaseline. That, along with his stoic countenance, his appearance had to look grim to the opponent. Also, you mentioned the first Lewis fight. I think that was the first fight I was actually physically wincing at as a spectator as he pummeled the body. Good memories, dude.

 

He fought all the best fighters of his era. What more could you ask?

 

Juan Nazario..and only Juan Nazario..lol

 

Outstanding WW resume, where I rank him #3 all time, with only SRR & SRL ahead of him.

He went around 35-2 in fights contested at WW.

He is 15-2 in lineal world title fights, during his 20-month and 4.5-year reigns. Armstrong & Britton won more WW lineal title fights, though Britton lost many more, too.

At WW Napoles beat Emile Griffth (my #6 all time WW), Curtis Cokes x 2 (my #20 all time WW, who was making the 7th title defence during his own impressive 3-year reign in their 1st fight), Clyde Grey, Ernie Lopez x 2, Hedgemon Lewis x 2, Billy Backus, Adolph Pruitt, Roger Menetrey (all ranked top 5 when he beat them), Haracio Saldano & Armando Muniz (both ranked top 10).

His only 2 x defeats at the weight were to Backus, on a cut, avenged, and past prime, in his final fight aged 35.

Yes, it's an outstanding resume.

 

A couple of things to note about Napoles

1) Ranked in the top 10 at 140 from '62 - '66 and couldn't get near a title shot despite being ranked the #1 contender for much of the time. The WBA apparently started putting pressure on Sandro Lopopolo to defend his title against his top challenger and he kept coming up with excuse upon excuse, despite them threatening them. He would agree and then sign to defend against someone else. It wasn't until George Parnassus entered the picture, moving Napoles to 147 and then offered Curtis Cokes the welterweight record-breaking sum of $80,000 to defend his title.

2) Napoles fought everyone, many of them twice in title fights, but he really should have defended against Eddie Perkins. Billy Backus once told me he got the title shot when they were looking at himself and Eddie Perkins. Backus felt they went with himself after looking at his poorer record and determined less risk. But truly, Eddie deserved it.

3) Armando Muniz was robbed of the title in their first fight in Acapulco. There was a lot of corrupt officials working to keep Napoles title at home including the referee Ramon Berumen, the doctor, the ringside officials and most of all Jose Sulaiman. Napoles did give Muniz a rematch and came back with a solid plan in the return and rightfully won. However, that does not ease the pain of beating the stuffing out of the champion and coming home with no crown.

4) In countless fantasy fights involving Napoles, people tend to say, "Well, if Napoles doesn't cut" or "If his eyes hold up". But he went through about 50 fights before he was cut against LC Morgan and didn't cut again until he had almost 70 fights in the Backus fights. He was cut in both Backus fights, which I attribute to the southpaw/orthodox meeting of the minds (or heads as the case may be). The next time he picked up a cut was in the rematch with Ernie Lopez which was now about 80 fights into his career. The Monzon fight done him in and he was cut again in the second Lewis fight, before Muniz shredded him. But that was a lot of fights before the Monzon match. I attribute any blood-letting at this time due to an arduous career. He fought a lot of sharp boxers like Curtis Cokes, Eddie Perkins, Emile Griffith, Clyde Gray and Lewis in their first fight without a scratch, so I would lose that bleeder tag.

Just some random thoughts on Napoles

 

Napoles win against Cokes is better than any of DLH's at Welter. The controversy over the Tito fight muddies things, but even there you could argue for Cokes.

The win over Griffith is another matter. Griffith absolutely had a long prime...but that prime was not at Welterweight anymore. The last time he fought there before the Napoles fight was about four years before. he should never have taken that fight and looked appalling in it, not surprising as he seems to have overtrained to get back down and came in at almost a career lowest weight. Unsurprisingly he never fought there again.

The Griffith that was still sharp and agile fighting the likes of Benvenuti and Tiger, or even as late in the day as his '70s middleweight days vs Monzon was a very different prospect from the drained husk that lined up against Napoles, who probably could have stepped it up and stopped him, but coasted most of the fight and gave Griffith too much respect, yet still won very easily.

That version of Griffith looks blatantly worse than inactive Quartey, past prime Pea, Tito or Mosley. In fact, I'd rate him as one of Napoles worst challengers on the form he showed that night - the epitome of when a name doesn't tell close to the full story.