Thirteen years ago today: Eric "Eddie/Thunder" Caminero, Sr. vs. Joseph "The Common Man" Smith, Jr.

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(note: shortly after this particular video annoyingly cuts out, literally moments later, Caminero broke Smith's jaw with a punch. Smith turned his back and the referee decreed it a TKO for Caminero. So, not a clean or thunderous - if you'll pardon the pun - KO, but a valid stoppage win under professional rules nonetheless)

Obviously their careers went on no less than antithetical trajectories afterwards. Plenty of digital ink has been quilled on JSJ and his later smashmouth ascent in the ranks, of course, so my thread is going to focus instead on the man that snatched his zero. Got a problem with that? IDGAF!

I had the pleasure of meeting Thunder after his destruction of Ardrick Butler on the undercard of Reynaldo López Brun's thrilling upset over once heavily hyped speedster Mike Oliver in 2008. He made time for anybody in the crowd that wanted a word, and proudly held by his side were his wife and kid - whom Eddie clearly adored.

He was a hard-punching and good-looking prospect on the rise, with decent fundamentals. There was a flicker of hope - sensibly guarded, of course (he was only 4-0 and hadn't even remotely stepped up in class yet) - for the Boston area to at last once more have a marketable star.

Hold your horses.

Life would come at him fast and hard in 2009, which proved to be the first major stumbling block of his career - a disaster year, really, a true annus horribilus. Eddie lost thrice in a row, to Jonathan Nelson, Elvin Ayala, and Joel McCreedy - steps up for which his prior opposition left him woefully unprepared.

Just as rapidly as things seemed to be unraveling, however, they went on the mend the following year. After going 0 and 3 in '09, he went 2 and 0 in 2010, scoring one minor and one (in hindsight) rather major upset. He dropped & stopped Chris Traietti, breaking his slump, and followed up with the aforementioned shocker over future WBO light heavyweight champion Smith.

The feel-good comeback story was to be a bitterly short chapter, alas. For the next half-decade (professionally) and full decade and change (personally) things would go from bad to worse for Eddie.

His team really fumbled things for him. What the Brits would term a "spectacular bollocks-up".

He went from being comfortably "in the black" with a 70% victory margin to deeply in the red with a final mark of 43.75% after going on a tough six loss skid (five of those by stoppage).

Przemysław "Patrick/The Machine" Majewski, Denis Alexandrovich "Drago's Son" Grachev, and then Badou Jack "The Ripper" one after the other is just a criminally unfair gauntlet to expect a 7-3 fighter to run - even if he was riding high off popping Smith's cherry. Dennis Hasson, Russell Lamour, and Jimmy Williams may not carry the same marquee value as that first trio, but they were all undefeated prospects that Caminero was fed to - consecutively - at the point his management should've been taking a step back and thinking about how to rebuild and not just cash him out, turning him effectively into a slab of meat to be passed around by up-and-comers.

Fight offers fizzled out altogether, his value plummeting. He remained in the gym hoping to field a phone call, but nobody rang. As far as I can gather, he discovered evidence of being cheated on not long afterwards with divorce proceedings soon to follow. Then, in 2019, he was smacked bang on the chin with about the worst blow you can take in life - his firstborn son, Eric Jr., predeceasing him, aged just 21 (forget the details, but I believe it may have been a car accident), leaving behind a young son.

Caminero Sr. was and remains devastated, almost four years on. He speaks openly and vulnerably about his ongoing mental health struggles on social media, including near daily intrusive thoughts about escaping it all (but he soldiers on for his surviving family: his mom, other kids and grandson). He could really use some positive vibes thrown his way. If you happen to be a prayer or believer in the power of it - can't hurt, right?

He is a good dude that's had some rotten luck. He may not be a household name and may go down as just a footnote in Smith's careers in the sport's annals, but had a few wiser decisions been made on his behalf, who knows how many televised bouts might've been provided for our entertainment? And accolades aside, again, he's just a solid doobie. Send him a thought.

He turns 44 on Friday. If you're on Facebook, leave him a happy birthday comment. Even if you're a somewhat embittered Joe Smith Jr. fan.

(IB funfact: he is listed on many websites as having a DOB of November eighth. The reason for this is quite silly. His profile on the amateur bout tracking website Sportenote used European date notation - day and then month, so 11.8.1979 - and probably all these other websites just copied it thinking it read November eighth when really it's August eleventh. I think Eddie himself knows best, and he posted last Tuesday on the first "ten more days and I'll be 44", so that settles that. )

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In hindsight really wish I'd recorded the Caminero vs. Butler match (the whole card but that especially) but smartphones were barely even a thing in 2008.

Alas, this is the only extant footage online showing a victory - and even this one's incomplete. Literally all the other videos you'll find are of his losses.

 

Hell, this the only vid on his own FB page of him competing - and it's under a minute long (without even an opponent identification), from the Golden Gloves probably 20ish years ago.

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Always nice to see a clean two-piece kayo with headgear on, though.

 

Happy birthday, Thunder.

https://www.facebook.com/eddie.caminero