Wilfredo Gomez

Wilfredo Gomez
Wilfredo Gómez (left) with the Puerto Rican historian, Tony Santiago
Data
Birth Name	Wilfredo Gomez
Weight class	Half light weight
nationality	Puerto Rican
birthday	October 29, 1956
place of birth	Las Monjas
style	Left delivery
size	1.65 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	48
Victories	44
Knockout victories	42
Defeats	3
draw	1

Wilfredo Gómez (born October 29, 1956 in Las Monjas , Puerto Rico ) is a retired Puerto Rican boxer . Under the nickname “Bazooka”, Gómez had one of the highest knockout odds in professional boxing (88%). The " Ring Magazine " rated Gómez in 2003 as the thirteenth best boxer and best semi-featherweight of all time. In 1995 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame .

amateur

In 1972 he took part in the Olympic Games in Munich , but was eliminated in the first round. In 1974 he was in Havana with only premature victories amateur world champion in bantamweight. He achieved further amateur success with victories at the Central American and Caribbean Championships in 1972 in San José and the Central American and Caribbean Games in 1974 in Santo Domingo .

Professional career

In 1974 he turned professional, in 1977 he knocked the South Korean Dun-Kyun Kim KO after he was on the ground in the first round and became WBC semi-featherweight world champion. In his long series of title defenses until 1983 he defeated, among others, the Mexican bantamweights (so slightly smaller) Carlos Zárate (then 52-0 with 51 KOs) and Lupe Pintor prematurely. He won all of his 17 title defenses by knockout, of which only the Japanese Kobayashi is worth mentioning among real semi-featherweights. After beating Pintor, he laid down the title to get out of featherweight.

He had already tried to win the WBC featherweight title in 1981, during his time as reigning semi-featherweight world champion, but lost to the Mexican defending champion Salvador Sánchez by technical knockout in the eighth round, it was his first defeat in professional boxing.

Mixed results in higher classes

In 1984 he won the featherweight title according to the version of the WBC with a point win over Juan La Porte , but lost it in his first title defense by knockout in the eleventh round to Azumah Nelson .

He then switched to super featherweight (junior lightweight) and secured the WBA World Championship title in 1985 with an official "victory" which the boxing press saw as a catastrophic mistake over Rocky Lockridge , but had to win it again in the first defense against Alfredo Layne (mixed record 13-5).

Web links

• Wilfredo Gómez in the BoxRec database
• biography