A Boxing Memory: Daniel Zaragoza

A Boxing Memory: Daniel Zaragoza

By Steve Hunt

“So, tell me. What seems to be the problem?”

I sat opposite my therapist, my head down, deeply troubled.

“I’m really struggling,” I replied, “I actually think I might be falling out of love”.

“Well, that can happen. Relationships do come to an end. It’s part of life. Has something significant happened, or has this been a gradual thing?”

“I guess it’s been a combination of factors. I just feel beaten down over time and it feels like the spark has gone.”

I tried to keep my composure so that I could detail the pain of the last few months.

“We had such high hopes for this year, but it all seems to be falling apart. The final straw was Conor Benn’s failed drug test. Excuse me, his “adverse analytical finding.”

My therapist could not disguise the look of surprise on his face.

“Excuse me? What exactly are you talking about? I thought you were struggling with the ending of a relationship?”

“I am. I think I’m falling out of love with boxing….”

“This is indeed more serious than I thought,” he replied. “Start from the beginning.”

I tried to gather my thoughts, but it was hard to remember things in order after such a torrid time.

“Well, there’s the amateur game and the fact that it is likely to be kicked out of the Olympics. Then there are the terrible undercards on televised shows. No other sport would put such non-competitive action on prime-time TV. The once-promising arrival of DAZN. The end of PPV they said!!!  Tyson Fury and his endless retirements and social media announcements. How did I even let myself think for a moment he would fight AJ? And now Chisora? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me? Then, of course, came the Conor Benn and Eddie Hearn catastrophe. You know what happened there, so I won’t go into details, but it has left me feeling sick. Maybe I’m just done with it. We had a good run. Do the best play against the best in bowling?”

The therapist took a long deep breath.

“Now just steady on for a moment. Let’s not get carried away. You certainly have had a tough time, and you are not the first person in my office this week with this problem. This seems to be rifer than Covid at the moment. But I do think I can help.”

He opened his desk drawer and took out his prescription pad (very old school, I thought), scribbled something on it, ripped off the top sheet and reached across to pass it to me.

I was stunned. I didn’t think any kind of medication would be the solution. I took the piece of paper and looked down at it. In typically bad handwriting, he had written,

“One Daniel Zaragoza fight to be watched per day for the next two weeks.” I was still puzzled. I could barely remember Zaragoza. I don’t think I had seen a fight of his in over twenty years. He certainly wasn’t a fighter that stood out in my memory, even though his prime had coincided with my youth and the time I was watching and reading everything boxing related that I could get my hands on.

The therapist could clearly see I was more than slightly perplexed.

“I realise that this is an unusual form of therapy but trust me. Give it two weeks on YouTube and I’m sure you will be right as rain. All that other nonsense will still be there, but you will remember why you fell in love in the first place. If by any chance you are not fully recovered, come back and see me, but I only prescribe short doses of the Andries-Harding trilogy as a last resort.”

So off I went, to revisit the career of Daniel Zaragoza, and you know what? He was right. It’s hard to say exactly what it is about the long-retired Mexican fighter, but after a few hours spent losing myself in his fights and my heart felt lighter already.

Everyone respects a road warrior. Oleksandr Usyk’s willingness to fight in his opponent’s back yard earns him kudos over other fighters who always seem to insist on having all the cards stacked in their favour. But even among road warriors, Zaragoza was a rare breed. Over the course of his seventeen-year, sixty-six-bout professional career he fought an Australian in Perth, a Texan in Texas, a Korean in Korea, a Californian in California, Japanese fighters in Japan, a Frenchman in France, a New Yorker in New York, and an Irishman in Boston. He took part in twenty-two world title bouts and not one of them was in Mexico.

He fought Jeff Fenech in the Aussie’s home country in April 1986 and was well outpointed. Fenech then was a young firecracker. Despite the wide disparity on the scorecards, Zaragoza never made it easy for the fellow future Hall of Famer. It was only Fenech’s thirteenth professional fight, but he was already the IBF bantamweight champion. Zaragoza was already an ex-world champion going into the fight and at the end of the contest, it would be easy to assume that “El Raton” was approaching the end of the road. He looked like a veteran whose best days were probably behind him.

The reality was that he was only just starting. I’m pretty sure Zaragoza never got asked for ID if he tried buying alcohol as a young man. He always looked old. When he challenged Carlos Zarate for the WBC super-bantamweight title, Zarate was the veteran at thirty-six. Zaragoza took the title with a tenth-round stoppage and Zarate never fought again. At the time, Daniel was twenty-eight.

When it came to ageing, Zaragoza was something of a magician. There was almost a warped version of the Dorian Gray story about him. He always looked like an old man in the ring, but when coming face to face with a younger opponent, by the end of the fight it’s the other man who has aged while Daniel rolls on. Such was the case when he lost his title to Frenchman Thierry Jacob. Jacob was a clear winner on points in their fight in Calais, and again it could have signalled the end of the line for the Mexican. An ex-champion once more. Where could he go from here? As it turned out, that was the last good win of Jacob’s career. Zaragoza had another title run in him and another five years at the top level. Zaragoza fought at the top level for so long that he spanned the era when a mullet hairstyle was acceptable through to when it became not OK. He embraced those changing times, with a marvellous mullet in his early world championship years, before losing the locks later on.

Every fight fan loves a trilogy, and Zaragoza gave us one of the great but largely forgotten, ones with his series of three fights with Paul Banke. The three bouts took place across two and a half years, each taking place at the Great Western Forum, in Inglewood, California. The trilogy encapsulates the essence of Zaragoza. Close decisions, tough losses, blood-soaked battles, pure entertainment, staying power, finding a way to win. Daniel came out a two-one winner. Tyson Fury could learn something here. Trilogies are only needed when there is something still to prove.

Often when a fighter suffers a defeat, the trainer takes the blame and is fired. Some boxers seem reluctant to look in the mirror and accept responsibility. For his entire championship career, throughout the wins and the losses, Daniel Zaragoza was trained by the now legendary Nacho Beristain. Zaragoza was Nacho’s first world champion. Revisiting Zaragoza’s fights on YouTube, you see the constant presence of Beristain between rounds, nearly always working on one, or often several, cuts and sending Daniel back out to battle. Beristain went on to train numerous other world champions and was, himself inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. That loyalty between fighter and trainer throughout the highs and lows of a long career is special.

Zaragoza was a southpaw with a style from no textbook. He often threw looping punches which had no right to find the target. He had a wicked right to the body and a tireless engine. If given room, he could outbox opponents, but if pushed the Mexican warrior in him was never far from the surface and he would happily trade punches to bring the crowd to their feet. As a result, he became a fan favourite even as he fought and beat hometown heroes. Daniel won over the Japanese crowd when taking the title from Kiyoshi Hatanaka in Nagoya in 1991 in another thrilling fight. Hatanaka never fought again. Another instance of a younger fighter looking across the ring at Daniel Zaragoza and experiencing our twisted version of Dorian Gray. By the end of twelve rounds, the Japanese fighter was the aged boxer and Zaragoza, despite his craggy, well-worn face, absorbed the youthful athleticism needed for further battles.

In 1995, he won his fourth world title, regaining the WBC super bantamweight title for the third time with a points win over Hector Acero Sanchez. They had fought a controversial draw earlier in the year allowing Hector to keep his title. In the rematch, at the bell to end the eleventh round, the ageing Zaragoza walks back to his corner. He is bleeding from at least four cuts, but of course, that does not bother him. Sensing victory is close and the chance to banish any talk of retirement, he punches the air. It is impossible not to root for him. He epitomizes the resilience of the great fighters.

Having turned professional in 1980, he was now a world champion again fifteen years into his career. After two more defences in Japan, Zaragoza faced the unbeaten Irishman, Wayne McCullough. Of course, he faced him in Boston because that’s where the Irish fans are. HBO were even joining the party by this point late in the day. McCullough was known as a pressure fighter and was obviously the younger man. He was renowned for a huge punch output. Zaragoza was in his late thirties and known for bleeding. I swear I’ve seen him mark up in fights as the referee was giving the pre-fight instructions in centre ring. Zaragoza knew that one more defeat would signal retirement and maybe that was all the incentive he needed. For he pulled out what must be one of the best performances of his career and one in which, miraculously, he came out of hardly marked. Despite the split points verdict, it looked like a clear win. During the fight, Roy Jones summed up the action perfectly.

“This is a young fighter being taken to school by a veteran fighter.”

Jim Lampley described the final round as one of “unbelievable intensity” as the two men traded blows, with Daniel clinging to his title and McCullough knowing that he needed the round to avoid a first career defeat. As well as being the winner on the judges’ cards, at the end of twelve rounds, Daniel had thrown more punches than the Pocket Rocket. This should not be possible for a 122lb fighter of this vintage. How can you not love this guy?

Zaragoza’s final fight was against a young up-and-comer called Erik Morales. Erik was twenty-one, while Daniel was thirty-nine. It was Morales’ first crack at a world title. Zaragoza was the oldest reigning world titlist. Going into the fight, Daniel’s record in world title fights was fifteen wins, five defeats and three draws. We will rarely see a record like that again. Morales was an unproven prospect at this point. Daniel hurt him in the fourth round and there was nothing in the fight after seven rounds. If Morales had been just another fighter, maybe Daniel would have pulled away on the cards and delayed retirement once again. But we now know that Erik Morales was one of the special ones and this was where his glorious legend really took off. He had a massive round in the eighth and the tide turned against Zaragoza for the last time. In the ninth round, the crowd were chanting Daniel’s name as he fought back under pressure, but it was in vain. He was dropped in the tenth and stopped in the eleventh. Morales demonstrated poise that belied his inexperience in winning his first world title. It is fitting that a warrior like Daniel Zaragoza should finally go out against a man who would go on to prove himself to be a truly great fighter. It was the classic passing of the torch scenario. Even in his final ring appearance when he was old enough to be his opponent’s father, we saw the beauty of Daniel Zaragoza. Faced with defeat in the late rounds, he would not make it easy for Morales. To beat him you would have to pay a price.

Daniel was not one of the greatest Mexican fighters. You might not even rank him among the best of the last forty years as the quality runs so deep. Even when he was a world title holder, he was not necessarily the proven number one in the division. He was just a really good fighter; a man who made the most of his talents. He competed at the top of the sport longer than it seemed possible. He may have smoked five cigarettes a day when not in training, but other than that, he lived the life of an athlete and only walked away when there was nothing left to give. If you bought a ticket for a Zaragoza fight or tuned in on TV, you were going to get a proper fight and value for money, whether he won or lost. And if he lost, there’s a fair chance he’d be after a rematch a few months later. These were the days when fighters were active. You would not read that “two fighters are rumoured to be close to finalizing a deal” for months on end. Daniel contested his first twelve-rounder in September 1982. For the remaining fifteen years of his career, he averaged more than three fights per year. I can barely remember what Terence Crawford looks like.

Maybe there are fighters like Daniel Zaragoza today, but they certainly seem rarer. He would fight anyone, and he would fight them anywhere. He would turn up in shape and if you were in the other corner, you better be able to go twelve hard rounds, or you were in for a nightmare. His resilience, loyalty, and even his ridiculous susceptibility to cuts makes him hard not to love. He retired with a record of fifty-five wins, eight defeats and three draws. He won a world title at bantamweight and the WBC super-bantamweight title three times.

There were easily enough enthralling and entertaining Daniel Zaragoza fights to fulfil my two-week course of treatment. I watched him lose a few, but mainly win, and always give his all. It was an exhilarating, uplifting journey. He was a special fighter in a sport that has a history littered with many, many special fighters. I loved watching him fight and I feel a lot better for it.

Photo Credit: Holly Stein