José Cuevas (boxer)

Jose " Pipino " Cuevas (* December 27, 1957 in Santo Tomás de los Platanos, Mexico as José Isidro Cuevas González ) is a former Mexican boxer.

Professional career

It was after a short amateur career at the age of only 13 years in professional and already lost his debut fight ( on November 14, 1971) by KO. In another four of his first twelve fights he was defeated on points. In the early phase of his career he only showed above-average borrower prowess and tremendous clout, especially with the left hook.

To have beaten no particularly good opponent, he got on July 17, 1976, shortly after another, this time controversial, the opportunity to win the WBA title -point defeat against Andy Price with 18 years against the Puerto Ángel Espada. He slapped the hand of his well-known for its rugged qualities Espada in the second round three times to the ground and eventually won by TKO.

He defended the title ten times successfully, among other things, against Miguel Ángel Campanino (who at the time of the battle won 32 times in a row and a balance sheet showed 84-4-4 ), Billy Backus, Pete Ranzany, Harold Volbrecht, Clyde Gray and Scott Clark and two return bouts against Espada. He almost always won with spectacular knockouts, only with Randy Shields he had bigger problems.

On August 2, 1980, he met but on the undefeated Thomas Hearns, who had also defeated Espada KO and against him in his hometown of Detroit by TKO in round two won. On June 25, 1981 it still made ​​a spectacular KO win in round 1 over the reigning European champions Jørgen Hansen, then he could not build on its past performance and lost to his career end of 1989, eight out of 16 fights, including against Roberto Durán. Mauricio Bravo ( 25-1 ), he was still beating in the first round KO, but he could not get one more shot at the title,

In 2001 José Cuevas was accused to be associated with organized crime. A year later, he was acquitted. In the same year he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.