Latin America's coming out party

Very good original question that doesnt involve the usual suspects

 

I have a copy here of a boxing magazine's yearbook from 1971, where it gives full-page synopses of the champions of that time. There was an introductory paragraph or two and one comment was that at the close of the year, the country with the most world champs was Venezuela. I have always chalked that up to the looming influence of the new sanctioning bodies.

In and of itself, this is not a bad thing as it did open some doors to a rich vein of talent that continues to present day.

 

You don't need much equipment to start boxing. IT's a good sport for poor countries to get their kids in volved.

 

Less of the European immigrants groups children got into the sport in America, plus their commissions got more established. Thus coaching got better so with better training, better connections, and in the case of Mexico, close proximity to the boxing Mecca of Southern California gave them better opportunities than previously and coupled with less participation from certain US ethnic groups created a perfect storm.

 

Pretty much the same as soccer.

 

Very true that there appeared to be a Latin Coming Out Party, particularly in those listed eras. Argentina was very popular in the 1970's, when Carlos Monzon won the title from Nino Benvenuti in Nov 1970, no one knew who he was, never heard of him. Then later boxing had Victor Galindez, Miguel Angel Cuello, and Hugo Corro. Those fighter could be seen on network television airwaves, ABC's Wide World Of Sports, CBS Sports Spectacular, and Closed Circuit television outlets. Those fighters fought in places like Monte Carlo, Monaco, Paris, France, Luna Park, and Rome, Italy. The promoters paid a hefty price. The taxes in the U.S. were pretty large, purses were not like they are today. So they hardly ever fought here. The WBA had a stranglehold on those fighters.

 

Sure was, Carlos Monzon defended his WBA Middleweight title (Rodrigo Valdes was the WBC Champion) against Tony Licata in Madison Square Garden on the same card as WBA Champion Victor Galindez vs countryman Jorge Ahumada, both Monzon and Galindez were victorious in their title defenses. Galindez continued to fight here, but not Monzon.

 

Galindez continued to fight here but not in NY. NY had a crazy tax situation back in the 70s that chased a lot of big fights out of town.

 

I know, he fought in New Orleans, and different venues. Fighters like Carlos Monzon and Hugo Corro continued to fight in Monte Carlo, Monaco, Paris, France. San Remo, Italy, and Luna Park.

 

Lot of layers and variables.

For one thing, the world got smaller with the advent of the jet airplane and it was probably around the 1970s before those were widespread and affordable commercially — the further back you go, a fighter more or less had to migrate to America or Europe to get noticed. Apart from Mexicans traveling more freely by car across the borders for fights, a guy in Venezuela or Argentina or Columbia beating up on countrymen wouldn’t get much notice … but if a guy was good enough he’d get noticed by someone connected and they’d bring him up to New York or wherever to see if he was real.

By the 1980s, you could afford to bring Nicaraguan Alexis Arguello to Miami and fly in Jose Luis Ramirez to fight him. They could get there quickly and affordably.

I think that has a lot to do with it.

Also, promoters and managers developed in these countries to make connections and make deals to get the better fighters from Latin countries on the radar outside of their regions.

But the advent of the WBA and WBC no doubt had a lot to do with it. You can call them corrupt, but boxing corruption did not begin with them — the mob controlled a lot of the U.S. fight game and people were locked out or elevated beyond their merit because of their connections (or lack thereof). Instead of giving a WBA/C bagman a bucket of cash to get a title shot, you signed your fighter over to some guy who had an associate named Fat Tony … and if you were a poor Latino fighter you weren’t breaking into the upper echelons.

So instead of the usual suspects from New York or the East Coast and some select connected fighters scattered here and there (including across Western Europe and the UK), the WBA/C came along and opened avenues to another part of the world. And they made alliances in Asia and elsewhere to increase access to the avenues of power within the sport.