On Feb. 25, 1986, Azteca Promotions staged a card at the Forum in Inglewood, California. Azumah Nelson won a 12-round majority decision over Marcos Villasana in defense of his WBC featherweight crown. In the chief supports, Hector Lopez and Rodolfo Gonzalez won 10-round decisions. So far, so good. Nice card but nothing of note. Below that, however, there were four 4-round fights: Ruben Olivares (89-12-2) fought to a majority draw with Roman Almaguer (13-9-4) — Ruben’s first fight since late 1981 Carlos Zarate (54-2) won a majority decision over Adam Garcia (9-6) — Zarate’s first fight since 1979 Pipino Cuevas (30-11) won a unanimous decision over Felipe Vaca (33-13-2) — Pipino had been off almost a year Rafael Herrera (46-9-4) won a majority decision over Alfredo Meneses (10-9-2) — Herrera, a former bantamweight champ, was off for 10 years before this fight Oh, and there was a four-round women’s bout, which was a rarity in those days. Does anyone know anything about this show? How the heck did they get four prominent former champs — three of whom were legends — to come out of retirement (not sure if Pipino had retired but he’d been dormant) to fight in FOUR-ROUNDERS? I mean, I could see if it they were doing a seniors tour type thing and four exhibitions among themselves (Cuevas is larger so maybe find a retired welter of note for him) … but they’re fighting pretty ordinary opponents in regular, sanctioned prelims like they were novices. I was looking up something on Pipino on boxrec and noticed this odd four-rounder that stuck out like a thumb on his late-career record and wondered, ‘Huh, what’s he doing in a low-undercard fight, what else took place on this card?’ … and when I clicked it I see these other legendary names. I’d be interested in any information on this card if anyone has any memories or has heard of this one before.
There is a boxrec glitch in there some place, because, if you look it up by checking the record of Villasana, it shows the fight occurred in August of 87, with a different undercard.
This was a charity show setup to give financial aid to the victims of a major earthquake that took place in Mexico and to assist the victims of the disaster. Many past Mexican stars volunteered to fight on the card and it actually jump-started Zarate's comeback.
I think that I am going senile. I remember their second fight, and that card, but I completely forgot that they fought twice.
