Zamora was just a brutal puncher...Mexico has produced some of the most vicious hitters ever, and in a fairly short amount of time.
KO specialists such as Ricardo Moreno, Rodolfo "El Gato" Gonzalez, Ruben Olivares, Bobby Chacon, Jesus Pimentel, Carlos Zarate and Alfonso Zamora, just to name a few, all rate very high in an all-time list of P4P Hardest Punchers.
There is really a large number of high quality KO artists for just that twenty year span...which I am not even speaking of guys like Joe Becerra, Vicente Saldivar, Efren Torres, Clemente Sanchez, Chango Carmona, Rodolfo Martinez, Romeo Anaya, Ricardo Arredondo and many others that I cannot think of right away...but all of who were top quality KO punchers in their own right.
From around 1955 to 1975 the lighter weight classes, from lightweight down to bantamweight, was absolutely filled with great fighters and that time span would have to match well with any other time span in history and in most instances...55-75 matched a lot better than most.
Expug, I think there was a little bit too much Billy Conn in Sandoval. In the 7th round of that fight, when he was concentrating on boxing Zamora instead of slugging it out with him, he was doing quite well, in fact, rocking Zamora badly in the 7th with that jackhammer jab of his. Perhaps the smell of blood was too much for him and he went at Zamora in the 8th instead of cooling his jets a little. Kiki, regarding Gutierrez, he was done after '72 and I hated seeing his fight with Sandoval cuz he was just a shell by then. Hate seeing great fighters hanging on way past their sell-by date.
I haven't seen Joey Orbillo since the 70's. Last time I saw Joey he was refereeing a kick boxing match at the L.A. Sports Arena. I know Joey had been with the L.A.P.D. Harbor division for awhile, but then left the police force.
I remember Joey from his first days as a pro, but I'm sure Frank can tell you more about his younger days. I recall seeing him train at Jake Shagrue's Hoover St. Gym in the mid-60's, when he was still a young, unbeaten heavyweight.
Joey was only about 5'10", or so, and weighed less than 190 lbs. A bit small for a heavyweight. Too bad there wasn't a cruiserweight class in those days. I remember he was vey fast, had good boxing skills and power.
As the older L.A. guys here remember, In the mid-60's, when Cal & Aileen Eaton brought big-time boxing back to the Olympic on thursday nights, there were a group of local heavyweights that were making quite an impression. There was Quarry, Orbillo, Jimmy Harryman, Manuel Ramos, Amos "Big Train" Lincoln, "Srap Iron" Johnson, etc.
Alenn used to tout the Olympic as "Home of the Heavyweights".
As Quarry & Orbillo racked up wins and unbeaten records, the talk of the town was a Quarry-Orbillo showdown. However, something kinda got in the way of this dream match; Orbillo received his draft notice, and in a matter of weeks he was in the Army.
About this time, Eddie Machen was attempting a comback in the twilight years of his career, and came to L.A. Machen lost a decision to Manuel Ramos at the Sports Arena on the undercard of the Raul Rojas-Pajarito Moreno rematch. It would seem as if Mahen were thru, however, part of the loss might be blamed on the fact that at 3am on the morning of the fight, Aileen Eaton was having him bailed out of jail after being arrested on a drunk driving charge.
Orbillo, in the meantime, had finished up Basic Training and was sent home on a short leave. He received permission from the Army to box during his leave and he took on Eddie Machen, after minimal training for the match. Eddie Machen was to be an "opponent" only. WRONG! Machen gave Orbillo a boxing lesson and sent him back to Fort Ord with a loss on his record.
This set up a another big L.A. heavyweight showdown, between Quarry & Mahen. Johnnie Flores wasn't happy that Quarry was very arrogant when it came to preparing himself for "old Eddie", and like Orbillo, found himself with a loss on his record, after being schooled by Machen over ten rounds.
Eventually, this led to the long awaited Quarry-Orbillo match, which would be held on one of Joey's Army leaves. Jery had his way with Orbillo, knocking him down en route to a unanimous decision win.
After that, Joey Orbillo's career kinda washed away. The time spent in the Army broke his momentum and he never came back with any success.
You knw Dagosd, I'm gunna call Mando Ramos today and see if he can update us on Orbillo. Mando still lives in the Harbor area, and I know he occasionaly runs into Joey. Ramos also sees Scrap Iron Johnson, now and then.
By the way, regarding Machen, after schooling the two L.A. boys, Aileen Eaton matched him with an unbeaten Philly heavyweight named Frazier. That was a helluva fight! MAchen huing in until the very last round before Smokin' Joe could take him out.
A couple years later, four top heavy's of Machen's era, including Eddie, were dead. All died within a year of each other under very starnge circumstances. These are the guys I'm referring to: Sonny Liston (no heroin overdose, as reported), Eddie MAchen (Eddie was a sleepwalker, and one night just walked out of his second story window, falling to his death?), Zora Folley, found dead in his family swimming pool (listed as an accident, nobody seems to explain what caused that bullet-sized hole in his head?), and Roger Rischer, I think he was found dead behind the wheel of his car, or something like that. All fought one another, all dead, all msteriosly. In boxing, dead men tell no tales.
Saw that fight at the Olympic. Great exhibition of boxing by Mando. I used to work with a Chicana woman from Boyle Heights. She said her dad had a bar somewhere around there. Her dad and Mando used to drink pretty good. Often she'd see them leaving with a couple of blondes. Does any of that ring a bell?
I figured Norton was ripe for Garcia. Too bad Garcia's career took a nosedive.
And last but not least. That fight poster of Bolanos and Williams. Proceeds for the Lou Costello Jr. Foundation. Really got to me pal. I did a post on the story of how Lou's son drowned in the family pool. He called his son Butch. Lou did his Armed Forces Radio show that night. Didn't want to let the servicemen down.
Here's a lighter note. Remember The Johnny Otis Show?
Let me start off by saying that it is good to see you posting again, as I remember reading your posts back on the old CBZ forum a few years ago and they were always a pleasure to read. Now I have a few questions for you, and if you can find the time to answer them I would be grateful.
My first questions concerns the Danny Lopez-Masanao Toyoshima bout, which I have heard rivals the Hagler/Hearns fight in terms of action, with the jap getting dropped twice in the first only to come back and drop Danny in the third before getting taken out in the same round. Did you see this fight by any chance? And if so, was it as good as I`ve been told and most important of all was it televised?
My second question concerns the Ruben Navarro vs Ken Buchanan fight, of which I remember you sharing a rather amusing story about the contingent of Scottish fans who made the trip to cheer on their fellow countryman. If you could share that story again with all of us that would be great.
Thought I would bump this post of mine to see if I can get an answer. On another note, I have been told a long time ago by someone who knew Bobby Chacon personally that he regularly beat his wife Valorie and wasn`t very kind to her, and he partly attributes her suicide to Bobby`s treatment of her during their marriage.
Now Bobby is one of my all-time favourites and I have a hard time believing this about him, so if either Rick, Frank or anyone else can tell me more about this and wether or not it is true I would appreciate it. Also, I was watching the Art Hafey/David Sotelo fight earlier today and before the fight the announcers were talking about how Chacon had anounced his retirement after his fight against Sotelo.
Did Chacon really announce his retirement at that time or was it just something he was contemplating? As for Hafey he did well to survive that 3rd round in which Sotelo had him on spaghetti legs for a good postion of the round. Art had a chin of granite and yet one small clip on the chin from Sotelo and his legs were reduced to jello... that Sotelo must have been some big time puncher to have Chacon down twice and Art nearly down and out as well.
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Tommy Bain
Bain fought Ricardo "Pajarito" Moreno at the Hollywood Legion Stadium (1957), in which was Moreno's first fight in L.A., a fight in which my wife and I sat ringside, Moreno won by ko in the 3 round, but before he stopped Bain, Moreno drop the referee with a wild left hook, what a nite of boxing that was.
Frank
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Rick,Thanks for getting back to me on Orbillo. Interesting stuff. Kiki,that's a great shot of Costello. Lou fought a little amateur in Paterson. He used the name Lou King. He didn't want his mother to know he was fighting.
Kiki and Rick,Have you guys ever thought of putting together a book?Maybe one of those "coffee table books" ? With your stories and those pictures,I'd buy one and so would my boxing pals in San Diego and South of The Border. It's not only a history of boxing,but a history of the area.
"Maxie's Gal" did a piece on the Baer/Campbell fight in the bay area. For me it was more than an interesting boxing story. She's from the area and she really captured the atmosphere.
This is bringing back more than memories of boxing,but what the climate was like in the Southland. I hope others on the Forum feal the same way I do. I hope this thread never ends.
One of my favorites. A tough guy in and outside the ring. Still haven't answered my question. A book from you two. I don't want to read Sugar and Hauser. They're more on the outside looking in. You two have personal experiences that the other two can only get through second hand sources. Besides everthing on ESPN is either Ali or stuff on the east coast or Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis. No knocking those guys,but come on there was more fighting going on elsewhere. Especially on the West Coast. In the 50's,60's,and70's I thought boxing was deeper and much more interesting out here. Well,maybe the last hurrah for boxing at MSG was the 50's and early 60's then theater TV took over. Think about it. We're hungry for other stuff.
I don't know about a book, Rick is the writer, I don't like to write, I like photography, I consider myself an amateur photographer
2000, I'm going to post a couple of pages from the Knockout magazine from the early 1950's, so you can see all the boxing that was going in L.A. that time.
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scartissue wrote:Expug, I think there was a little bit too much Billy Conn in Sandoval. In the 7th round of that fight, when he was concentrating on boxing Zamora instead of slugging it out with him, he was doing quite well, in fact, rocking Zamora badly in the 7th with that jackhammer jab of his. Perhaps the smell of blood was too much for him and he went at Zamora in the 8th instead of cooling his jets a little. Kiki, regarding Gutierrez, he was done after '72 and I hated seeing his fight with Sandoval cuz he was just a shell by then. Hate seeing great fighters hanging on way past their sell-by date.
Scartissue
Thanks Scar,
Very interesting.
Was Superfly a little bit more of a Boxer /mover type than banger most of the time in his fights?
Was he ahead at the time of the Zamora stoppage?
