I’ve had several favorite Mexican boxers such as International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee WBA and two-time WBC World Featherweight champion southpaw Vicente ‘El Zurdo de Oro’ Saldivar, with a 37-3 record with 26 stoppages.
Saldivar won his first sixteen fights before being stopped by Cuban Baby Luis, 10-2m in December of 1962. In June of 1963 he won the rematch stopping Luis in eight rounds again in Mexico City.
Saldivar went on to defeat future world lightweight champion Panama’s Ismael Laguna, 34-1, in Tijuana in June of 1964. This earned him a world title fight in stopping the WBA and WBC World Featherweight champion Cuban Sugar Ramos, 45-1-3, who fought out of Mexico, in September of 1964 in Mexico City.
Another favorite of mine was Mexican Bantamweight champ Joe ‘El Huitlacoche’ Medel, who also lost to Eder Jofre, 32-0-3. in a world title fight. He would go on to win the NABF title, defeating Herman Marques, 14-4-1.
He would go on to Tokyo and defeat Mitsunori Seki, 31-3-1, and Haruo Sakamoto, 23-5-2. A win over Sadao Yaoita, 50-10-2, would earn him a rematch with Jofre, 43-0-3, again losing. He ended up at 69-31-8.
My one trip to the International Boxing Hall of Fame I met former three division world champion Marco Antonio Barrera, 67-7 with 44 stoppages. I discussed his win over Naseem Hamed, 35-0, who grabbed the microphone after being inducted and said, “You will all serve Allah!
Barrera would go on to win most rounds until the final one when he pinned Hamed in a corner, grabbing his face and pushing it into the turnbuckle, losing the round and almost getting DQ’d., winning the vacant IBO World Featherweight title.
Barrera won his first world title defeating Daniel Jimenez, 19-2-1 and had classic fights with Erik Morales, 41-0, whom he lost to but won the rematch two fights after Hamed, winning the WBC Featherweight title and also later the Super Featherweight title from Morales, 47-1.
Morales was a 4-division champion, 52-9 with 36 stoppages.
Possibly the most well-known Mexican was 3-division world champion Julio “JC” Cesar Chavez, 107-6-2, with 85 stoppages, and 29 defenses.
The 2-division world champion was Ricardo “Finito” Lopez, 51-0-1, who had the best overall record of Mexican champions. He reversed the draw defeating Rosendo Alvarez, 24-0-1.
Kid Azteca, 192-47-11, with 114 stoppages was the most winning.
Active boxers today 4-division champ and current Super Middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, 60-2-2. He just defeated former WBO Light Middleweight champion Jaime Munguia, now 43-1.
