Doing a little homework on these guys .. I know that Burnett was one of those guys that never got a break and took losses in at least ten fights he should have been awarded .. watching his loss to Cuello and it is really weird .. when he gets hit in the ninth the film seems to miss frames of the actual punch and then the fight seems to be stopped after a fast count .. Cuello, who was underrated, only fight one more time, loses to Mate Parlov and never fights again .. anyone know why ?
I ran this Spanish article through a Google Spanish - English translator. The best I can tell is Cuello allowed himself to get way out of shape against Mate Parlov, got beat bad, and was embarrassed so badly he decided to never fight again. (Victor Galindez was Numero Uno in Argentina at the time also) "After consecrating in front of Burnett, Cuello took an eternity to return to Europe. When he did, he was very out of shape. It happened in Milan, on January 7, 1978 against the lefty and skillful Croatian Mate Parlov. Badly trained, he fell for the entire account in the ninth and left a terrible image, to such an extent that later he would ask for forgiveness to Brusa, who was in his corner. In some notes that appear on the Internet about Cuello it is stated that Brusa was not in his corner on the day of the fight with Parlov angry about the lack of seriousness of Miguel- and that only climbed who trained him regularly, José Batista. That is totally false. We assure you for two reasons. First, because we have statements from Brusa that corroborate this. Secondly, we confirmed it recently with Rufino Cabrera, who fought in the two evenings in which Cuello was a World Cup, the one in Monte Carlo and the one in Milan, which was definitely his goodbye performance. In Argentina he would have remained overshadowed by the greatness of Victor Galindez (medium-heavyweight king of the World Boxing Association) and the selective treatment of Luna Park, who took care of his most profitable figures and beat the rest." http://www.ellitoral.com/index.php/diarios/2012/07/14/deportes/DEPO-08.html
I recall well when this bout took place and some of the things leading up to it. For one, the original fight was to be John Conteh defending his title against Miguel Cuello, but Conteh pulled out at the 11th hour claiming he was practically going through with this at gunpoint. He later stated that there was a lot of money floating around and being distributed on this fight but none of it was coming his way. Whatever the cause, the WBC was not too happy, promptly stripped Conteh and sent everyone scrambling to find a suitable opponent for Cuello for the vacant title so they did not lose the TV date. They, of course, found Jesse Burnett. A world ranked fighter noted for taking fights on short notice. I think it was like 72 hours notice so he arrived in MC totally jet-lagged. He gave a good early account of himself, dropping Cuello early, but flagging as the fight wore on. That punch would have done nothing to a fresh, well-trained Burnett and Cuello was just lucky. He was a very one-dimensional fighter and if they fought 10 more times I would have picked Burnett 10 times.
Argentime fighters...titlists and champions like Cuello, Corro ect.,....had an awfully high standard to meet after the rule of Monzon and Galindez..both Cuello and Corro faded from the scene quickly after losing their titles in not too gallant efforts.
