Salvador Sanchez: A Remembrance By Antonio Santiago, Doghouse Boxing (Aug 12, 2012) Doghouse Boxing - Tweet
By Antonio Santiago, Doghouse Boxing. -
Not everyday do we get to observe one
more decade since a legendary figure’s passing. Today is one of
those days. Because 30 years ago, Latin boxing fans as well as boxing
fans all over the world, lost a young, beloved figure in the great
champion with the chin as solid as the Maya ruins, and the heart of
an Aztec warrior. 30 years ago, on August 12th, 1982,
Salvador Sanchez died in a car crash outside Mexico City.
Now, most of us probably remember, as I
do, where exactly we were at and what we were doing when we heard
about the Challenger exploding or about the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks. I too remember where I was and what I was doing
when I first heard Salvador Sanchez died. I was just a 5th grader, getting ready for my birthday on August 13th. I
went to school as normally, and spent time with my best friend Juan
Viruet, with Hermes, Miguel, Jose Guillermo, Pablo, Silvette and
Ivelisse, my old, elementary school gang. I went and bought candy at
Nain’s store, located at the college I was at, and took classes
from Ms. Sandra Soto, the finest specimen of a Black woman you can
ever see (I still have a crush on you, Ms. Soto!). Then, my day
almost came to a halt. When my dad picked me up after school, he and
my mom informed me about what everyone else in Puerto Rico already
knew: the news could not be harrower…all over the radio and the
television, the voices you heard said the same thing: “Breaking
News from Mexico City, Mexico, the world featherweight boxing
champion Salvador Sanchez died this morning in a car accident”.
To me, this was almost surreal because
I knew boxers like no 10 year old that I personally knew about, I
knew names like Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran,
Thomas Hearns, Larry Holmes, Gerry Cooney, Wilfred Benitez, Alfredo
Escalera and Wilfredo Gomez (I would first know about Marvelous
Marvin Hagler later in 1982), and yet I had never heard of a famous
boxer like that die. I guess now that it must have been illogical to
my mind that people could die before getting too old!!
Now, with that in mind, I have to note
that many famous people have died “before their time”, as they
say. But Mexicans in particular seem to have a notable amount of
those who did. You have Sanchez, dead at 23. Enrique Camarena, the
United States Marine Corps soldier who later worked with the DEA
against some cartels, dead in his 30’s. Selena Quintanilla, the
inspirational Tejano singer, dead at 22. Ricardo Valenzuela, better
known as “Ritchie Valens”, who sang the classic “La Bamba”,
dead at 17 in a plane crash in Iowa (coincidentally, at about the
same time and around the same area in which Rocky Marciano, our
undisputed, boxing Heavyweight champion of the world, died in a plane
crash too). Fanny Cano, a young actress, who died as a cause of the
Iberia Airlines-Aviaco Airlines plane collision at Madrid
International Airport, also in 1982. For some reason, it seems that
to some, being Mexican, young and famous is not a lucky mix.
On the other hand, I need to say that
Benitez and Gomez are my all time favorite boxing champions. Every
time they fought, I tried mighty as I could, as if my screams could
lead them to victory, (or for that matter as if they could hear me
actually) to talk them into a win from the comfort of my house. I am
talking about watching Benitez-Duran with my dad and my late cousin
Tomas here, as well as Gomez-Juan Antonio Lopez (an undercard fight
on that great night of fighting history when Holmes and Cooney put
one of the best Heavyweight fights of the 1980’s). I am talking
about attending my first fight in person, with my grandpa and the
aforementioned cousin Tomas as Gomez made easy work of Jose Luis
Soto, and about the night I became a full time boxing fan, when Gomez
beat Lupe Pintor and Benitez lost to Hearns, but not without showing
some dandiness of his own. Imagine then, how I screamed when Sanchez
fought Gomez, hoping against the impossible that Gomez could turn
around what, for all purposes after the first round, you could tell
was going to be his first loss! To me, Gomez losing that night stung,
because Gomez was almost seen as a superman at that time by his fans.
A bit of my innocence left me when Carlos Padilla stopped the bout in
round 8th.
Another bit of that innocence, clearly,
also left when I learned Sanchez was gone forever, and realizing no
matter how we wanted him back, he would never come back. The only
other time I can say I’ve felt like that about a boxer’s death
was in 2009, when another all time Latin favorite of mine, Nicaraguan
Alexis Arguello, supposedly committed suicide. Sanchez and Arguello
were part of the best era ever in boxing history. Don’t let the
historians fool you, the 1970’s were awesome, and the 1920’s and
1930’s and all had their great champions, but when you think of how
many members of the International Boxing Hall of Fame fought at least
once during the 1980’s, the number is mind boggling.
Sanchez was a boxer whose legacy is
still being debated to this day. He had this way, this manner of
making his greatest opponents his easiest fights, and his not so
great ones the most complicated ones. Well, except for Azumah Nelson,
who came as an unknown to fight Sanchez but later became a legend
himself, but that’s another story right there. That is part of the
reason that we still debate him. How would he have fared against
Sammy Serrano, the WBA Jr. Lightweight Champion of the world, or
against Bobby Chacon or “Bazooka” Limon for that matter? How’d
he done against Arguello? In a rematch with the other “Bazooka”,
Gomez? How would he have done against Eusebio Pedroza or up and
coming Barry McGuigan?
Pedroza seems to be the biggest
question among all those, since time and again there were chances of
them fighting to unify the world Featherweight championship
(remember, Sanchez was the WBC champion and Pedroza the WBA’s)
Pedroza defended his title 19 times and he also is a member,
correctly so, of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. I have to
say, however wrong as I was, that after McGuigan relieved Pedroza of
his championship in 1985, in my 13 year old’s mind, I likened
McGuigan to Sanchez or to Arguello. Given how McGuigan handled
Pedroza in 1985, I’d give the 1982 version of Sanchez a slight edge
over the Pedroza of the same year.
But we will never know, because
Salvador Sanchez was taken from us before all those fights could take
place.
30 years ago today.
And so because he was, I want to
dedicate this to his memory. A Puerto Rican boxing fan dedicating a
remembrance to a fighter who beat one of his favorite of all time.
Salvador Sanchez touched us all.
And so, I want to make sure he will not
be forgotten today. In fact, instead of ending this on a sad note, I
want to wish the “Campeon” a Feliz Cumpleano in Heaven, since 30
years ago, he went there. That is where people like him end up at.
Please send all Questions and comments to Antonio at TJ69662094@aol.com. Visit the IMPROVED Doghouse Boxing Forums (Login with your Facebook or Twitter account - Now Mobile, Ipad, Blackberry, Android & YouTube Friendly) DogPound
