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Salvador
Sánchez Narvaez (January
26,
1959
-
August 12,
1982)
was an all-time great
Mexican
boxer born in the small town of
Santiago Tianguistenco,
Mexico.
Sánchez started his career
very young, as a teenager, and he started piling up
wins against tough
Mexican
opposition. His first fight of note came against the
Mexican
bantamweight
champion
Antonio Becerra,
and Becerra proved far too experienced for the young
Sánchez, dropping him in the first round, en route
to a 12 round split decision. This would turn out to
be Sánchez's last knockdown and loss suffered during
his career.
Sánchez kept on fighting
and moved to the Featherweight division. Soon he had
beaten people like the
Puerto Rican
featherweight champion
Felix Trinidad Sr.,
on his way to securing a title shot at world
champion
Danny "Little Red" Lopez,
a popular TV fighter of the late
1970s
who was an impressive fighter and had won some
spectacular fights against the likes of former world
champion
David Kotei
(twice),
Juan Malvares
and
Mike Ayala.
Confident and hard to beat, Lopez was beaten by
Sánchez, who knocked out the defending champion in
13 rounds in
Phoenix, Arizona.
Thinking it was just a case of 'beginner's
luck' (as it was
Sánchez's first world title fight ever) Lopez looked
for a rematch and this he got, in
Las Vegas.
This time he lasted one more round.
After defeating the young
future world champion
Juan Laporte,
Sánchez embarked on a string of defenses against men
like
Patrick Ford
and
Roberto Castanon,
retaining his title each time. Then World Jr
Featherweight champion
Wilfredo
Gómez went up in
weight and challenged Sánchez. Sánchez retained the
crown by a knockout in round eight on
August 21,
1981
in Las Vegas, and Gómez had to return to the Jr.
Featherweight division.
With that victory, Salvador
Sánchez was an unknown to the casual
boxing
fan no more. He became a household name all over
America
that night.
Two fights later, his
defense vs unheralded
Jorge "Rocky" Garcia
was the first fight featuring two featherweights
ever to be televised by
HBO.
He beat Garcia punch after punch, but the challenger
gave honor to his nickname, an unknown fighter who
lasts the distance with the world champion.
Then came
Azumah
Nelson at
Madison Square Garden.
The unknown Nelson came from
Ghana
and would later become a 3 time world champion and a
future hall of famer. He was unknown however, and
was expected to only go a few rounds with the champ.
It was an intense battle, with Sánchez managing to
drop his young charge in the 7th round. After that
they engaged in violent exchange after violent
exchange. In the 15th, Sánchez broke out finally,
connecting with a serious combination that dropped
the challenger almost outside the ring. Referee
Tony Perez
had to stop the fight seconds later.
Death
The fight with Nelson
proved to be Sánchez's last. As he was training for
a rematch with Laporte set for September, he crashed
on the early morning of
August 12,
1982
while driving his brand new
Porsche
sports car, dying instantly. At the time of his
death at 23, there were talks about a rematch with
Gómez or a challenge of world lightweight champion
Alexis Argüello.
Sánchez was posthumously
inducted into the
International Boxing Hall Of
Fame in 1991.
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