Onyok once beat a Cuban

Guillermo Rigondeaux was the first Cuban to face a Filipino fighter in a world professional boxing bout and ran away with a unanimous 12-round decision over Nonito Donaire Jr. to unify the WBO and WBA superbantamweight titles in New York City last Saturday night.

But it wasn’t the first time a Cuban and a Filipino faced off in a pro fight. Last December, Sorsogon brawler Michael Farenas dropped former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa in the ninth round but failed to stem the tide in losing a unanimous decision to the Cuban in Las Vegas.

In Olympic boxing, only 1996 lightflyweight silver medalist Onyok Velasco succeeded in upending a Cuban. He did it via a 14-5 decision over Yosvany Aguilera at the Atlanta Games. In 1992, two Cubans scored stoppage victories over Filipinos at the Barcelona Olympics – bantamweight Joel Casamayor knocked out Roberto Jalnaiz in one round and Rogelio Marcelo halted Roel Velasco, also in a single round, in the lightflyweight semifinals. In the 1996 edition, two more Cubans defeated Filipinos as lightweight Julio Gonzalez outpointed Romeo Brin, 24-13, and flyweight Maikro Romero eliminated Elias Recaido, 18-3, in the flyweight quarterfinals.

 At the 1999 AIBA World Championships in Houston, Romero lost a 9-2 decision to Brian Viloria for the lightflyweight gold medal. The loss left a bad stain in the record of Cuban amateur boxing. John Duncan, writing in the book “In The Red Corner – A Journey into Cuban Boxing,” described Viloria as “a slight Hawaiian who boxed above expectations” and said, “Romero could hardly have expected to leave the ring with more than the knowledge that one of the world’s great boxers had beaten him by only four or five points, instead (Viloria) left with a gold medal and a 9-2 points victory which for Maikro, who can go through a whole tournament without conceding nine points, constituted a thrashing.”

Duncan said Romero was not sad but angry and humiliated by the setback. “An honest boxer, (Romero) composed himself quickly and went over to (Viloria) to shake hands and, he obviously hoped, to solicit some sort of acknowledgement from Viloria that the judges had got it wrong,” wrote Duncan. “But there was none. Not consciously anyway. But boxers can never truly hide it when they know they have lost. When Maikro tried to talk to him, Viloria shuffled away. He couldn’t quite look Maikro in the eye. He knew he had been lucky.” Duncan was clearly under the impression that Romero was robbed but he conveniently forgot to mention that in turning away from the Cuban, Viloria couldn’t console him anyway because he doesn’t speak Spanish.

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Cuba had a slew of world professional boxing champions before Fidel Castro banned prizefighting on Feb. 23, 1961. “This was not a moral decision simply against the cruelty of professional boxing but against professional sport as a whole,” explained Duncan. “Sport from then on was considered a right of the people and was to be about participation rather than earning money.”

The first Cuban world professional boxing titlist was Kid Chocolate who won the junior lightweight crown in 1931. Others who followed in his footsteps included Ultiminio (Sugar) Ramos, Benny (Kid) Paret, Jose (Mantequilla) Napoles, Luis Rodriguez and Jose Legra. Ramos and Paret were involved in fatal ring accidents. Ramos stopped Davey Moore in a world featherweight title bout in Los Angeles in 1963 and the loser died of head injuries two days later. A year earlier in New York City, Paret was knocked out cold in the 12th round by Emile Griffith in a world welterweight championship fight and never regained consciousness, succumbing in the hospital after 10 days.

Against Donaire, Rigondeaux showed up with Casamayor and heavyweight Ramon Garvey in his corner. Casamayor and Garbey defected from Cuba in 1996. While Casamayor had his moments of glory as the world superfeatherweight and lightweight champion, Garbey never won a title as a pro. Casamayor, 41, and Garbey, 42, now live in Miami where Rigondeaux sought asylum as a defector and refugee in 2009. Casamayor was knocked out by Timothy Bradley in his last outing in November 2011.

Cuban fighters are known to be slick artists with a rich amateur background and Rigondeaux is no exception to the rule. He spent nine years in the Cuban national training camp called “La Finca” (or “The Farm”) where he polished his skills. In 2000, Rigondeaux captured the Olympic gold medal as a bantamweight, waylaying five opponents in the process – Moez Zemzemi of Tunisia, Kazumasa Tsujimoto of Japan, Agasi Agaguloglu of Turkey, Clarence Vinson of the US and Raimkul Malakhbekov of Russia. The next year, he bagged the gold medal at the AIBA World Championships in Belfast, bowling over Tsujimoto, Reidar Walstad of Norway, Artur Mikaelian of Greece, Sergey Danilchenko of Ukraine and Agasi Mamedov of Russia.