cuban boxer

[Ken Gargett]

back in early 2004, i was in a bar in havana with some mates, a pom and an aussie who were both down from london (and no, this is not a bad joke). a local was doing some sweeping and bumming cigarettes (from my mates) and drinks from all of us. a lot of fun but we thought he was full of bs. he claimed to be the bouncer. he was bouncing around but also sweeping and only five foot bugger all.at one stage, the bar was raided and he was allowed to stay so we figured he was at least working there. smoked like a chimney and drank anything he could find.

about 3am, he tells us that he is going to get himself selected for the cuban boxing team (not much bigger in cuba) for the athens olympics - and is throwing shadow punches everywhere. yeah, yeah...

gave me his name on a bit of paper.

a year or so later, i found the paper in some stuff and thought it would be fun to look him up. just to see if he did make the team. could have knocked me over with a feather. not only did he make the team, he won the silver medal.

i went back to the bar on a later trip to try and catch up with him but now he was no longer janitor/bouncer but cuban royalty and an honoured regular. amazing.

anyway, was chatting about this with my mate, who has moved home, just recently and so i thought i'd see if he'd done anything else. this is his career. seriously amazing. not many others have either beaten or got so close to beating mayweather?

a couple of world titles. i put it down to all the rum i fed him that night.

okay, all the crap below is how it came out. basically, silver in athens, two world amateur titles, a pan-american gold, ten cuban titles and lost in the 1/4s on a split 12/11 decision to a bloke called floyd mayweather. not bad.

Lorenzo Aragón

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search This name uses Spanish naming customs; the first or paternal family name is Aragón and the second or maternal family name is Armenteros.Lorenzo AragónPersonal informationFull nameLorenzo Aragón ArmenterosNickname(s)El Barbaro del RingNationality <A title=Cuba href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba' class='thumbborder' alt='""' />CubaBornApril 28, 1974 (1974-04-28) (age 37)

<A class=new title="Santa Isabel de las Lajas (page does not exist)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Santa_Isabel_de_las_Lajas&action=edit&redlink=1">Santa Isabel de las Lajas, <A title=Cienfuegos href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cienfuegos">CienfuegosHeight1.63 m (5 ft 4 in)Weight69 kilograms (150 lb)SportSportBoxing<A class=mw-redirect title="Boxing weight classes" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_weight_classes">Rated at<A title=Welterweight href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welterweight">WelterweightMedal record<A id=NavToggle1 class=NavToggle href="javascript:toggleNavigationBar(1);">[show]<A title="Boxing at the Summer Olympics" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_at_the_Summer_Olympics">Olympic GamesSilver<A title="2004 Summer Olympics" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Summer_Olympics">2004 Athens<A title="Boxing at the 2004 Summer Olympics" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_at_the_2004_Summer_Olympics">Welterweight<A title="World Amateur Boxing Championships" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Amateur_Boxing_Championships">World Amateur ChampionshipsGold<A title="2001 World Amateur Boxing Championships" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_World_Amateur_Boxing_Championships">2001 BelfastWelterweightGold<A title="2003 World Amateur Boxing Championships" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_World_Amateur_Boxing_Championships">2003 BangkokWelterweight<A title="Pan American Games" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_Games">Pan American GamesGold<A title="2003 Pan American Games" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Pan_American_Games">2003 Santo DomingoWelterweightLorenzo Aragón Armenteros (born April 28, 1974) is a <A title=Cuba href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba">Cuban <A title=Boxing href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing">boxer, who was a double world champ in the <A title=Welterweight href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welterweight">welterweight (69 kg) category.

Contents

Amateur career

Aragón competed at the 1996 Olympics as a featherweight, losing in the quarterfinals to Floyd Mayweather.

Aragón won the world championships at welter in 2001 beating Anthony Thompson (2001 World Amateur Boxing Championships).

He repeated his win in 2003 defeating Andre Berto.( 2003 World Amateur Boxing Championships) and also was the 2003 Pan American Games champion.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics he won the silver medal. He beat American Vanes Martirosyan but in the final, Aragón was defeated by surprise winner Bakhtiyar Artayev of Kazakhstan with a score of 36-26. Prior to the Athens Games he won the 2004 Acropolis Boxing Cup in Athens, Greece by defeating Azerbaijan's Ruslan Khairov in the final of the welterweight division.

Aragón was also a ten-time national amateur champion in Cuba, in each weight class between flyweight and welterweight.

Olympic results 1996 (Featherweight)

• Defeated Nouzedinne Medjihoud (Algeria) 9-6
• Defeated Rogerio de Brito (Brazil) 16-6
• Lost to Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (United States) 11-12

2004 (Welterweight)

• Defeated Theodoros Kotakos (Greece) RSC-3 (1:29)
• Defeated Vanes Martirosyan (United States) 20-11
• Defeated Ruslan Khairov (Azerbaijan) 16-14
• Defeated Kim Jung-Joo (South Korea) 38-10
• Lost to Bakhtiyar Artayev (Kazakhstan) 36-26

Other amateur highlights

• 1992 Cuban amateur flyweight champion
• 1992 Under-19 flyweight world champion.
• 1994 Cuban amateur bantmaweight champion, defeating Mario Kindelan
• 1994 Pan-American bantamweight champion
• 1995 Cuban amateur lightweight champion
• 1996 Cuban amateur featherweight champion
• 1997 Cuban amateur lightweight champion
• 1998 Cuban amateur Light welteweight champion
• 1999 Cuban amateur welterweight champion
• 2001 Cuban amateur welterweight champion
• 2001 World amateur welterweight champion at competition in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Results were:
  • Defeated Ryan Savage (Canada) RSC 3
  • Defeated Bae Ho-Jo (South Korea) RSC 3
  • Defeated Timour Gaidalov (Russia) 27-15
  • Defeated Sherzod Husanov (Uzbekistan) RSC 2
  • Defeated Anthony Thompson (United States) 27-15

  [*]2003 Cuban amateur welterweight champion[*]2003 World amateur welterweight champion at competition in Bangkok, Thailand. Results were:

  • Defeated Vilmos Balog (Hungary) 23-8
  • Defeated Bulent Ulusoy (Turkey) 18-17
  • Defeated Spas Genov (Bulgaria) 24-15
  • Defeated Manon Boonjamnong (Thailand) RSC 2
  • Defeated Andre Berto (United States) 25-15
• 2003 gold medalist at Pan-American Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Results were:
  • Defeated Fabián Leonardo Velardes (Argentina) 23-4
  • Defeated Euris Gonzalez (Dominican Republic) 25-4
  • Defeated Juan McPherson (United States) 30-11

  [*]2004 Cuban amateur welterweight champion

[El Presidente]

I can picture it now at the completion of his first world title......centre ring....microphones in his face....but he was having none of that as he yelled:

Kenny...Kenny!...Kenny!....This is for you Kenny!!!!!

:D :D

[Ken Gargett]

I can picture it now at the completion of his first world title......centre ring....microphones in his face....but he was having none of that as he yelled:

Kenny...Kenny!...Kenny!....This is for you Kenny!!!!!

:D :D

dear heathen,

if you knew your rocky, you'd know he lost that first one.

and as it was well before i met him, i'm thinking unlikely.

[mazolaman]

There's not much of the olympics I watch, but I make a point of watching the Cubans box.

They are always brilliant, and there's no BS yapping from them, just good, hard boxers.

[Ken Gargett]

i try and watch things like boxing, swimming, makin events, and so on. all great fun.

this year, i will either not watch or support any other nation/team/side on the planet (okay, possibly not the kiwis) IF we select that grub darcy. if there is a worse tosser around, i'd rather not know. he has dragged his name, his family's name, swimming, the aussie olympics, the lot, into the mud. if that is our ideal of upholding the olympic ideal, by having scum like nick darcy represent us, then not for me.

[JohnnyC]

Teófilo Stevenson ..... best Cuban fighter I ever watched. Most of his wins were by K.O. One of three boxers to ever win three Gold metals in the Olympics. I have no doubt if he could have went Pro he would have been the heavyweight champ of the world.

[coblos]

Your story made me think of a young boxer from my home town (about 15yrs ago) who was much hyped as a teenager, was going to win gold for Australia and all that crap. Last I heard of him he was at the institute of sport. Did a google search for the opposite of Ken's results. Nothing. Just a facebook page of some overweight guy that may or may not be him.

[aes8]

What a boxing thread from down under forum and no mention of my mate Kevin Barry???

[Ken Gargett]

Teófilo Stevenson ..... best Cuban fighter I ever watched. Most of his wins were by K.O. One of three boxers to ever win three Gold metals in the Olympics. I have no doubt if he could have went Pro he would have been the heavyweight champ of the world.

and but for the boycott of LA, he could have most likely had four.

the question of world champion is a fascinating one. no doubt he is way way better than the vast majority of people who have held the title but he was smack bang in the middle of ali's era. an ali-stevenson fight would have been as big, if not bigger than ali/frazier. but who would have won? very very hard to go against ali. he really was an amazing boxer.

spoke to joe bugner once, about who would win between ali and tyson, if each at their best. i think joe actually fought them both and i'm pretty sure he fought ali twice (i'd have to check but in the back of my mind, i have joe as the only bloke to go the distance with ali - twice??). joe just laughed and said that tyson would not have been able to lay a glove on ali. he thought ali was so much better than tyson at his peak - a scary thought. so where does teofilo fit in that?

of course, these days, they could all have world titles. find a homeless bum, give him a thumping in a bout before four men and a pimp in outer reno, and claim entitlement to a great big shiny belt and world title.

[CanuckSARTech]

Kinda cool, actually. A neat little connection found there. Cool to hear he went on to good things.

[partifan]

If we are talking Tyson fighting with Cus D'Amato, he would have brutalized Ali. D'Amato never gets the credit he deserves as one of the greats.