Willie Pastrano

Pastrano, Willie
Data
Birth Name	Pastrano, Wilfried Raleigh
Weight class	Light heavyweight, heavyweight
nationality	US-american
birthday	November 27, 1935
place of birth	Miami , Florida
Date of death	December 6, 1997
Place of death	New Orleans
style	Left-hand boom
size	1.82 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	84
Victories	63
Knockout victories	14th
Defeats	13
draw	8th

Willie Pastrano (born November 27, 1935 in Miami , Florida , † December 6, 1997 in New Orleans ) was an American boxer . He was the world champion of professional light heavyweight boxers.

Career

Willie Pastrano grew up in poor conditions in New Orleans. As a teenager he was very fat, so he decided to start boxing with his friend Ralph Dupas . He lost a lot of weight and showed great talent for boxing. His first coach was Whitney Esneault, who also became his first manager when Willie Pastrano became a professional boxer at the age of 16. For the first three years he boxed mainly in New Orleans and a few times in Miami Beach . He fought his first fight on September 10, 1951 in New Orleans. He defeated it Domingo Rivera welterweight on points.

At the instigation of Whitney Esneault, Angelo Dundee, who would later become world famous as the coach of Cassius Clay alias Muhammad Ali, took over the training of Willie Pastrano and Ralh Dupas in the mid-1950s. Willie Pastrano made rapid progress on this. So he defeated on March 29, 1954 and August 24, 1954 Jimmy Martinez , on April 12, 1954 the French Jaques Royer Crezy and on March 23, 1955 in Chicago Al Andrews after 10 rounds on points.

Two victories followed, which made him known in one fell swoop in the American boxing scene. On June 28, 1955, Willie Pastrano won in New Orleans over the experienced ex-world light heavyweight champion Joey Maxim on points and on June 27, 1955 in New Orleans he also defeated Chuck Spieser , who was considered the great American hope in the light heavyweight division Points. He also defeated Chuck Spieser in further matches on January 27, 1956 and on May 30, 1956 on points. On December 19, 1955, he had already defeated Rex Layne on points in New Orleans, who had long been considered the great white boxing hope in the heavyweight division .

Between 1957 and 1960, Willie Pastrano only fought in the heavyweight division. He defeated among others the British Dick Richardson , Brian London and Joe Bygraves and also the Berlin Billy Besmanoff , but also lost to Joe Erskine , in the revenge against Brian London and against his compatriot Alonzo Johnson . Against Alonzo Johnson, who was one of the best American heavyweights of those years, he then won on May 6, 1960 in Louisville , Kentucky , on points. At the beginning of the 1960s, Willie Pastrano also trained a lot with Cassius Clay , who was also prepared for his fights by Angelo Dundee . Both boxers were similar in style and the 18-year-old Clay certainly refrained from one or the other technical finesse from the experienced Willie Pastrano, who had been a professional boxer for 10 years. Willie Pastrano's best stroke at the time was the left straight, with which he won many a fight.

On May 28, 1962, Willie Pastrano, who had trained again in the light heavyweight division, faced the legendary ex-world champion Archie Moore in Los Angeles . He gave this boxing Methuselah an excellent fight that ended in a draw. On June 1, 1963, Willie Pastrano boxed in Las Vegas against the reigning world light heavyweight champion Harold Johnson , who had scored Bubi Scholz a year earlier in Berlin , for the world title of the WBC and the WBA for the title in the light heavyweight division. Willie Pastrano won that fight with 2: 1 judges vote and was new WBC and WBA world champion at light heavyweight.

He succeeded in this title on April 10, 1964 in New Orleans by a technical knockout victory in the 6th round over the Argentine Gregoria Manuel Peralta and on November 30, 1964 in Manchester by a technical. Defend knockout win in the 11th round over former English middleweight champion Terry Downes .

On March 30, 1965 Willie Pastrano defended his title against the American José Torres and was defeated by technical knockout in the 9th round. The titles went to Jose Torres. Willie Pastrano never returned to the ring after this defeat.

In 2001 Pastrano was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame .

After boxing

Willie Pastrano, who had married at the age of 19 and had five children with his wife Faye (nine according to another source), was penniless after a short time, although he had earned not bad as a professional boxer. He tried his hand at film acting for a short time, but was unsuccessful. In 1969 he trained for a comeback as a boxer, but that never materialized. Eventually ended up working as a bar bouncer and a casino receptionist in Reno . In those years he also had problems with drugs (heroin). When he received an offer from the city of New Orleans to work as a youth boxing coach in community services, he accepted and got his life under control again. He died in New Orleans at the age of 62.

Web links

• Willie Pastrano's fight record
• - 46k - Portrait of Willie Pastrano in English