Luis Manuel Rodríguez (17 June 1937 – 8 July 1996) was a Cuban

professional boxer Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory autho ...

. Known as "El Feo", he began his career in pre-

Castro Castro is a Romance language word that originally derived from Latin ''castrum'', a pre-Roman military camp or fortification (cf: Greek: ''kastron''; Proto-Celtic:''*Kassrik;'' br, kaer, *kastro). The English-language equivalent is '' chester''. ...

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

. In Cuba, he twice defeated the ill-fated future

welterweight Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify the ...

champion

Benny Paret Bernardo Paret (March 14, 1937 – April 3, 1962), known as Benny Paret or Benny "Kid" Paret, was a Cuban welterweight boxer who won the World Welterweight Championship twice in the early 1960s. Paret's death occurred 10 days after injuries ...

. He held the WBA, WBC, and lineal

titles in 1963, and challenged once for the WBA, and WBC

middleweight Middleweight is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing Professional In professional boxing, the middleweight division is contested above and up to . Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have be ...

titles in 1969. After the Cuban Revolution, Rodríguez campaigned in the United States. Fighting out of

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

, Rodriguez decisioned top welterweights such as

Virgil Akins Virgil Akins (March 10, 1928 – January 22, 2011) was an American boxer who won the Welterweight Championship of the World in 1958. Nicknamed ‘Honeybear’, Akins was the first World Champion boxer from St. Louis. Career Akins was born and d ...

and Rudell Stitch.

Professional career

He was unbeaten in 36 fights before losing a

split decision A split decision (SD) is a winning criterion in boxing, most commonly in full-contact combat sports, in which two of the three judges score one particular competitor as the winner, while the third judge scores for the other competitor. A split dec ...

Emile Griffith Emile Alphonse Griffith (February 3, 1938 – July 23, 2013) was a professional boxer from the U.S. Virgin Islands who won world titles in three weight divisions. He held the world light middleweight, undisputed welterweight, and middleweight t ...

in a 1960 non-title fight. In 1963, Rodriguez and Griffith fought twice for the lineal welterweight title. Rodriguez defeated Griffith by a

unanimous decision A unanimous decision (UD) is a winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts and other sports involving striking and submission in which all three judges agree on which fighter ...

to win the title, but Griffith regained it three months later with a split decision. Their fourth and final meeting came in 1964, with Griffith retaining the

title with a split decision. Rodriguez was trained by

Angelo Dundee Angelo is an Italian masculine given name and surname meaning "angel", or "messenger". People People with the given name *Angelo Accattino (born 1966), Italian prelate of the Catholic Church *Angelo Acciaioli (bishop) (1298–1357), Italian Rom ...

at the old 5th Street Gym in

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which sep ...

alongside

Ralph Dupas Ralph Dupas (October 14, 1935 – January 25, 2008) was an American boxer from New Orleans who won the world light middleweight championship. Early boxing career Dupas was the second of eleven children of a New Orleans fisherman, Peter Dupas. H ...

Willie Pastrano Wilfred Raleigh Pastrano (November 27, 1935 – December 6, 1997) was an American former professional boxer who competed from 1951 to 1965. He held the undisputed WBA, WBC, and ''The Ring'' light heavyweight titles between 1963 and 1965. Earl ...

, Florentino Fernández and Pinklon Thomas. Rodriguez was ringside and provided ancillary television commentary for the nationally televised Thursday night, 21 March 1963

Dodger Stadium Dodger Stadium is a baseball stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of ( ...

featherweight Featherweight is a weight class in the combat sports of boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, and Greco-Roman wrestling. Boxing Professional boxing History A featherweight boxer weighs in at a limit of . In the early days of the division, this ...

championship bout between reigning champ Davey Moore and

Sugar Ramos Ultiminio Ramos Zaqueira (2 December 1941 – 3 September 2017) was a Cuban-born Mexican professional boxer who was better known as Sugar Ramos. Ramos fought out of Mexico where he was adopted as a national hero. He was a world featherweight cha ...

, won after ten rounds by

technical knockout A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...

(TKO) by Ramos and resulting within the hour in a comatose state for Moore, and ultimately his death on 25 March. He had just beaten Griffith (who had himself fought

in another tragic fight) for the world Welterweight title in the same program. Moore's death was memorialized by recording artist

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

in his long-unreleased (but widely bootlegged) song, "

Who Killed Davey Moore? "Who Killed Davey Moore?" is a topical song written in 1963 by American folk singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. Though the song was not commercially released on Dylan's several studio albums in the 1960s, it was popular in his repertoire for live shows ...

" (the complete telecast of the fight is available on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

, as are several of Dylan's various performances of the song.) In November 1969, Rodriguez challenged

Nino Benvenuti Giovanni "Nino" Benvenuti (born 26 April 1938) is an Italian former professional boxer and actor. He held world titles in two weight classes, having held the undisputed super-welterweight championship from June 1965 to June 1966 and the undispute ...

in Rome, Italy, for the

world title. In the eleventh-round, slightly ahead on points but tiring and badly cut, Benvenuti suddenly landed a perfect left hook that left Rodriguez on the floor for 5 minutes. Rodriguez retired in 1972.Luis Rodriguez
www.ibhof.com. Retrieved on April 2, 2016. He was inducted into the

International Boxing Hall of Fame The modern International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF), located in Canastota, New York, honors boxers, trainers and other contributors to the sport worldwide. Inductees are selected by members of the Boxing Writers Association of America. The I ...

in 1997. In 2009 ''The'' ''Ring'' magazine ranked Rodriguez as the third-greatest Cuban boxer of all time, behind

Kid Gavilán Gerardo González (January 6, 1926 – February 13, 2003), better known in the boxing world as Kid Gavilan, was a Cuban boxer. Gavilán was the former undisputed welterweight champion from 1951 to 1954 having simultaneously held the NYSAC, WBA ...

and

Kid Chocolate Eligio Sardiñas Montalvo (January 6, 1910 – August 8, 1988), better known as Kid Chocolate, was a Cuban boxing, boxer who enjoyed great success both in the boxing ring and outside it during the 1930s. Chocolate boxed professionally between 1 ...

Eastern Airlines Flight 202

Rodriguez and his trainers were among 33 passengers on

Eastern Airlines Eastern Air Lines, also colloquially known as Eastern, was a major United States airline from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution, it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County, Florida. Ea ...

flight 202 from Miami to

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

, when that flight got hijacked and taken to Cuba on July 24, 1961. Rodriguez was fearful for his life since he had escaped from Cuba recently. However, Cuban authorities allowed the plane and its passengers to return to the United States without further incident. Rodriguez was on his way to a fight versus Curtis Cokes, which he eventually lost by split decision some days later, on August 3.

Professional boxing record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez, Luis 1937 births 1996 deaths Cuban male boxers Cuban people of African descent Sportspeople from Camagüey World Boxing Association champions World Boxing Council champions The Ring (magazine) champions Welterweight boxers Middleweight boxers World welterweight boxing champions International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees

Professional career

Eastern Airlines Flight 202

Professional boxing record

See also

References

External links