A Boxing Memory: Alexis Arguello

A Boxing Memory: Alexis Arguello

Many boxers suffer in retirement, but maybe Alexis Arguello suffered more than most. The many demons he fought for much of his life resulted in Arguello committing suicide in 2009. A single gunshot wound to his chest at his home in Managua, Nicaragua, when he was just 57 ended the life of a truly incredible fighter. Thoughts of taking his own life had been there before. Arguello had struggled with depression, financial woes, and an ongoing battle with cocaine and alcohol abuse, but he appeared to have found some semblance of peace in his later years. Elected vice-mayor of Managua in 2004 and subsequently mayor in 2008, but it seemed his demons were one fight Arguello couldn’t win. Three days of mourning in Nicaragua followed his death. There are different theories to the cause of his death. Officially suicide, many said something different.

Born in 1952 and raised in poverty in a deprived area of Managua. One of eight children, his parents struggled to feed the family. His father tried to commit suicide when Arguello was only five years into his life. When he was nine, Arguello ran away from home when his parents said money was so tight they couldn’t afford to send him to school, and he started to work on a dairy farm.

When he was 16, Arguello, no stranger to fights on the cobbles, found boxing. Nicknamed “El Flaco Explosivo” (The Explosive Thin Man), Arguello turned professional in 1968 and recovered from several early setbacks in his career to become one of the greatest fighters that ever lived. Arguello won world titles at three different weights, featherweight, super-featherweight, and lightweight, and came desperately close to winning a fourth against Aaron Pryor in 1982. Many would argue that without the aid of the infamous magic bottle, Arguello would have become the first fighter to win a world title in four different weight divisions.

In 1974, after losing a previous challenge to Ernesto Marcelo, Arguello won his first world title, defeating Ruben Olivares to claim the WBA featherweight title, a title he never lost in the ring. Moving up in weight, Arguello stopped Alfredo Escalero to win the WBC super-featherweight title in a savage fight labelled the ‘bloody battle of Bayamón’ and defended his title against a who’s who of that era. Arguello beat Escarla in a rematch in another bloody affair, and there were wins over the likes of Bobby Chacon, Rafael Limon, Ruben Castillo and Rolando Navarrete. All those fights ended inside the distance. Again, without losing his title in the ring, Arguello moved up to lightweight and travelled to London in 1981 to defeat Jim Watt on points to win the WBC lightweight title. Arguello defended his third world title four times, including a 14th-round stoppage of Ray Mancini, before moving up in weight yet again to challenge the unbeaten Aaron Pryor for his WBA light-welterweight title in 1982.

Fight fans regularly and quite rightly talk about the opening round of Hagler Hearns being one of the greatest rounds in boxing history, but the opening three minutes of Pryor Arguello rivals anything ever seen inside a boxing ring before or since. It was a truly incredible breathtaking first round. And unlike Hagler Hearns, the fight didn’t end after just eight minutes. That first Aaron Pryor and Alexis Arguello fight had a little bit of everything, including more than a hint of controversy. Panama Lewis, in Pryor’s corner, said in the later rounds when Arguello appeared to be getting on top against a fading Pryor, “Give me the other bottle, the one I mixed.” Accusations of foul play were denied. They always are. But Pryor somehow found another gear to turn the fight back in his favour.

Before the message in a bottle, Pryor, a non-stop whirlwind of a fighter, threatened to overwhelm Arguello at times, but the Nicaraguan more than had his moments. The Ring Magazine called it the Fight of the Decade. Trust me, it was that good. Pryor eventually prevailed in fourteen sensational rounds.

“We both left everything we had in the ring that night. No one knows what Alexis and I went through that night in Miami except me and him.” Pryor said post-fight. It was an immensely savage and brutal fight and one of those fights where both fighters left a piece of themselves on that Miami canvas. Arguably, maybe for many reasons, neither was ever quite the same again. The rematch the following year was good. It was very good, but equally, still a pale shadow of their first meeting. Pryor won again. This time, he stopped Arguello in ten rounds. Arguello retired but money problems drove the inevitable comeback. The highlight was a 4th stoppage of the former world champion Billy Costello in 1986. Heart problems forced that short-lived two-fight comeback to end, but he returned again eight years later. Arguello managed one victory before he lost on points to Scott Walker in 1995 when he was 42. Arguello wisely never fought again.

Retirement was beyond hard for Arguello. But even in his prime, life had a way of testing him far more than boxing ever could. He was forced to flee his native land when the civil war was raging in Nicaragua in the late 1970s. Arguello ended up in the United States but when the left-wing Sandinista regime took over his country they confiscated virtually everything Arguello owned including his two homes, other properties and his bank account, and his younger brother was also a victim of the conflict. Arguello switched political allegiance in later life, campaigning for the Sandinista National Liberation Front.

Despite what he achieved in his life and career, Arguello couldn’t seem to escape from himself and find happiness of the mind. The fight with depression that sadly had that tragic ending we saw in 2009.