Crying for Argentina

Omar Narvaez wasn’t the first fighter to shame Argentina in the ring. He was booed and ridiculed for refusing to engage WBC/WBO bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire Jr. in their recent 12-round title bout in New York City. Narvaez did his version of Joshua Clottey in cowardly picking up a $250,000 paycheck without earning it, losing every round in the three judges’ scorecards in the process.

Argentina’s tango with boxing has had its ups and downs. Carlos Monzon, arguably Argentina’s greatest world boxing champion ever, reigned as middleweight titlist for seven years and lost only thrice in 100 bouts. But in 1988, Monzon was sentenced to serve 11 years in prison for his wife’s death and during a weekend furlough in 1995, was killed in a car crash. It was an ugly end to Monzon’s life.

Another fabled Argentinian fighter Pascual Perez, an Olympic gold medalist, was the world flyweight champion from 1954 to 1960 and died penniless at the age of 51 in 1977. Perez’ pro record was 84-7-1, with 57 KOs, but he lost five of his last seven outings, including a split decision defeat to Filipino Leo Zulueta at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum in 1963. The fight against Zulueta was Perez’s third in one month – he beat Juan Moreyra by decision on April 5, knocked out Cirilo Avellanda on April 12 and bowed to Zulueta on April 30. It appeared that Perez had to keep busy for “economic” purposes.

The Donaire-Narvaez fight was the seventh world championship bout involving a Filipino and Argentinian. Aside from Donaire’s whitewash, the only other Filipino win came in 1966 when Flash Elorde outpointed Vicente Derado to retain his junior lightweight title at the Araneta Coliseum. Derado was a globe-trotting journeyman who displayed his wares in Jamaica, Los Angeles, New York, Panama, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Venezuela, Ecuador, Tokyo, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Brazil in an 18-year career that ended when he was 38 in 1975. Believe it or not, Derado’s record settled at 58-35-26, including 22 KOs – a total of 119 fights. Derado decisioned “Ageless” Arthur Persley twice at the Big Dome in 1965.

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Perez turned back two Filipino challengers to retain his flyweight crown – Leo Espinosa in Buenos Aires in 1956 and Dommy Ursua at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum in 1958. Morris East yielded his WBA superlightweight diadem to Juan Martin Coggi on an eighth round stoppage in Buenos Aires in 1993 and Armand Picar was stopped in two rounds by WBA superwelterweight champion Julio Cesar Vazquez in Las Vegas in 1994. Narvaez defeated Filipino challenger Rexon Flores to retain his WBO flyweight title in Cordoba, Argentina, in 2006.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. made mincemeat of two Argentinian challengers. In 1999, Pretty Boy trounced Carlos Rios to keep his WBC superfeatherweight title on lop-sided scores of 120-110, 120-109 and 119-108. Then in 2006, he embarrassed Carlos Baldomir in a WBC welterweight title defense via scores of 120-108, 120-108 and 118-110. Rios and Baldomir were cut in the same mold as Narvaez.

Last January, American lightwelterweight DeMarcus Corley raised a howl and cried foul after losing to hometowner Lucas Matthysse in Mendoza, Argentina. Local referee Hernan Guajardo supposedly allowed Matthysse to throw low blows and rabbit punches and ruled knockdowns on obvious pushes. Guajardo counted nine knockdowns before ending it in the eighth round. Corley claimed on the morning of the fight, he was fetched in his hotel room at 6 a.m., brought to a hospital to undergo a battery of medical tests until 2 p.m. and brought to the arena a few hours later.

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In 1996, East’s tormentor Coggi faced American Frankie Randall in Miami. In the third round, the fighters’ feet got tangled up and as Randall fell to the canvas, Coggi clipped him with a punch. Instead of castigating Coggi, referee William Conners ruled a knockdown. In the fifth round, an accidental clash of heads left Coggi bleeding badly from a cut. Coggi lay on the canvas and wouldn’t get up, forcing Conners to call a halt to the fight and decide the outcome on the scorecards. Coggi, realizing he was ahead because of the third round knockdown, took the inglorious route of feigning inability to continue, robbed the fans of their money’s worth and walked away with a technical decision. In a rematch seven months later, Coggi lost a unanimous decision to Randall.

Another shameless Argentine fighter was Luis Angel Firpo, known as the “Wild Bull of the Pampas.” In 1923, he fought Jack Dempsey for the world heavyweight crown before 80,000 fans at the Polo Grounds in New York. In the first round, he surprised the Manassas Mauler by flooring him but Dempsey got up to deck Firpo seven times in the same canto. Late in the action-packed opening round, Firpo belted Dempsey out of the ring and onto the ringside reporters’ table. Dempsey cut his head when he hit a typewriter in the fall. It took about 14 seconds for Dempsey to get back on his feet in the ring with a little help from ringside kibitzers. Referee Johnny Gallagher, however, counted only up to four. In the second round, Dempsey floored Firpo twice and ended the carnage. A year later, Firpo lost a 12-round decision to Charley Weinert in New Jersey and syndicated writer Damon Runyon said the Argentinian took only two rounds even as other reporters felt it was a shutout. In Firpo’s last fight in 1936, he was decked nine times in losing to Chile’s Arturo Godoy on a fourth round technical knockout in Buenos Aires.

Narvaez wasn’t the first Argentinian fighter to shame his country. What a disgrace.