Jose Napoles vs. Armando Muniz 'I'.....'Fair or Unfair'

[scartissue]

Armando who had been fighting primarily at The Olympic Auditorium, had switched
over to Don Fraser and The Forum in late-1974, which seemed to advance his
position as a Challenger for the World Welterweight Championship.


Il Duce, regarding your statement here about Muniz and where he was fighting. Actually Muniz was thrown out of the Olympic back in '71 after the Oscar Albarado fight. His manager Jake Horn got into a dispute with Aileen Eaton who told Horn to hit the road. He then began fighting for the Forum and anywhere else until '73, when he acquired co-manager Vic Weiss, who soothed things out with Eaton. But Muniz was one of the few fighters who was not a house fighter, which i'll bet pissed off Eaton, but I'm sure she was smart enough to see he was box-office and had to accept it. He fought steadily at the Olympic, also for Mickey Davies down in San Diego, for the Flores family in Tucson and also for the Forum. As a matter of fact, when he got the call to fight Napoles, he was in training for an Ernie Lopez rematch at the Forum. Regarding your details on the fight, i have watched this fight many times and never saw anything intentional in the way of butting by Muniz. It was his style to get inside, and Napoles countered him beautifully, but again, I never saw anything intentional. I'm not trying to give out here, please carry on, I am totally enjoying your take on this.

[scartissue]

Il Duce, there is another good write-up out there from Rich Roberts I believe, who wrote for the Long Beach Press. He gave a scathing diatribe on the fight. I believe he mentioned the entire chance Muniz received was predicated on the fact that Muniz was cut in the Lewis fight. An edict was then given that no swabs were to be permitted by either corner. This of course is loading the gun for Napoles. However, Roberts noted that the Napoles corner was using swabs and they were all 'lost' in the crowd between rounds. I watched everything intently and did see something handed off to someone at ringside, but of course I don't know what it was. Roberts also mentions the 12th where "Napoles looked like he was hit with a custard pie he had so much goop applied to his face". Basically, everything was in Napoles' favor. I don't want to get ahead of myself because you're doing a fine job detailing the fight, but the 11th was a travesty. I sort of lost count how many low blows Napoles threw and landed on Muniz while the thief Ramon Berumen looked the other way. It was comical how when Napoles was coming forward Muniz instinctively lifted his leg to protect the twins, while Berumen looked around. Muniz himself told me, "Berumen was just sitting there waiting for me to retaliate so he could DQ me." Also, my score up to about the 8th round was all for Napoles. Muniz fought inside and Napoles countered. However, in the 8th, Muniz changed his gameplan. He began jabbing his way in, which tore open the cuts. Another 30 seconds on that 10th round and Muniz would ahve had him, napoles was hurt that bad. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Please continue.

[El Gallo]

I am close with both Armando Muniz and Don Fraser.
Scartissue, you and I were standing right next to Muniz last October at our CBHOF event, when Mando told us of Fraser not allowing him out of a contract he'd signed when given an opportunity to fight Napoles in Mexico. They had signed days earlier, and Fraser used his contract options to take money out of the boxer's pocket. I have been close with Mando Muniz since we were both amateurs, and I fought on the undercard of 8 Muniz events, including his matches with Emile Griffith and Clyde Gray. It was an honor serving as the WBHOF's historian and executive director under Mando when he was President of that organization. I am very interested in this thread, and as soon as I have time will review all of the above posts. I know Il Duce and my pal Scartissue are talking some great history here, of particular interest to me having been around back when this was going on. -Rick Farris