A Boxing Memory: Eusebio Pedroza

A Boxing Memory: Eusebio Pedroza

In 1985, the brilliant and long-reigning WBA featherweight champion Eusebio Pedroza was still a formidable fighter. The decline may have been setting in, but if Barry McGuigan thought he would give up that title without a fight, he would have been greatly mistaken.

But McGuigan would have expected a tough night at the office, and he most certainly got one. McGuigan earned that win and the WBA bauble on a famous night at the home of Queens Park Rangers in 1985. A good win made even better by the man in front of him. Over 20,000 fans witnessed the crowning of a new champion. But even the most loyal McGuigan fan would have felt a soft spot and more than a touch of respect for the way the old champion went out on his shield.

Harry Mullan, who was ringside for Boxing News wrote:

“It was a measure of Pedroza’s own worth as a champion that it took a challenger as gifted as McGuigan to end his reign.“

Down in round seven, Pedroza looked on the verge of defeat several times as the rounds progressed, but every single time McGuigan thought he had the fight won, Pedroza survived and came roaring back. Pedroza’s last heroic defence of his world title was watched live by nineteen million on the BBC. It seemed the entire nation stopped and watched one of the greatest nights ever seen in a British ring.

Pedroza had made nineteen successful defences of his title before the inspired Clones featherweight hopeful ripped his title away from him. Thirteen of those defences were on away soil. For seven years, he reigned as the best featherweight on the planet. He didn’t let go of his title without one hell of a fight. Pedroza started well, and it was at worst, an even fight in the first third of a thoroughly engrossing contest. Only when McGuigan dropped Pedroza in the 7th round, did the fight turn in the challenger’s favour.

Despite being only 29 on the night he lost his title, he was more or less done after McGuigan beat him on points. Edgar Castro beat him on a split decision the following year, and Pedroza then retired before launching another comeback five years later that didn’t amount to much and he left the sport for good after a final defeat in 1992.

Pedroza turned professional in 1973 and lost to Alfonso Zamora in his first attempt at world honours. In an attempt to win the WBA bantamweight title, Zamora knocked Pedroza out in two rounds. The Panamanian was stopped again in his next fight but then didn’t lose again until McGuigan ended his twenty-six-fight unbeaten streak in 1985.

In 1978, in his native land, Pedroza stopped Cecilio Lastra in thirteen rounds to claim the WBA featherweight title and in those nineteen successful defences, he turned back the challenge of the likes of Jose Caba, Ruben Olivares, Rocky Lockridge and Juan Laporte. The majestic American Bernard Taylor got a draw with Pedroza in 1982, the only blemish on his title reign until the night McGuigan changed the course of featherweight history. Many thought Lockridge beat him in their first meeting in 1980, Pedroza winning only by a much-debated split decision. But Pedroza removed all doubt in the rematch three years later. There was talk of a big unification fight with the equally exceptional Mexican Salvador Sanchez which ended when the WBC champion was killed in a tragic automobile accident in 1982. A fight very much lost in time.

Pedroza had a reputation as a dirty fighter. And it was a label that was well-deserved at times. Juan LaPorte would testify to that. Their meeting in 1982 was a cocktail of low blows and punches after the bell from the champion. It cost Pedroza points on the cards. But not the fight. But the brilliance of Pedroza shouldn’t be dimmed by the passing of time. The Panamanian was a true fifteen-round fighter, often doing his best work in the closing rounds. A wonderfully gifted fighter who can rightly be in the conversation for the best featherweight in boxing history.

One day before his 63rd birthday, Pedroza passed away in 2019 from pancreatic cancer at home in Panama.