Wilfredo Gomez Was An Assassin in Puerto Rican Red, White And Blue

The diminutive, curly-headed boxer was a phenom. He was a fine technician. He could outbox you if he wanted to. But he had a killer instinct and dynamite in his gloves, and so he preferred war. He was an assassin in red, white and blue trunks.

Wilfredo Gomez was 32-0-1 with 32 knockouts heading into his Summer 1981 showdown with Salvador Sanchez. It wasn’t Marvelous Marvin Hagler or Sugar Ray Leonard or Thomas Hearns or even Sanchez himself who sat atop the pound-for-pound ratings. It was Gomez.

And though that cloak of invincibility and that undefeated record was removed by Sanchez, the slugger from Santurce bounced back to prove himself more than a tough guy with power. He ultimately won world titles in three divisions (back when it was a historic feat), he became a Hall of Famer and, maybe, the greatest Puerto Rican fighter to ever lace up the gloves.

Gomez, 69, died last week, no longer the wunderkind he was a half century prior – and someone who suffered immensely for his greatness. He’d long been in ill health because of his unforgiving profession. But few of us will have the lasting impact that “Bazooka” did. He made a sport salute his greatness and a commonwealth swell with pride.

Gomez is perhaps best known as the greatest junior featherweight in boxing history. He made 17 consecutive defenses of the crown – all by knockout. He didn’t just beat people. He annihilated them. He became a man among boys so profoundly that the move up to featherweight became a foregone conclusion. It was the only place he could find competition.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he destroyed future world champions with ease, making it look easy against guys like Albert Davila and Leonardo Cruz and treating future Hall of Famer Carlos Zarate like a sparring partner. And he did it with a quiet cockiness – the kind of supreme self-belief that only a man who’d never been beaten could possess.

Then came Aug. 21, 1981.

Gomez entered the ring vs. Sanchez, the multi-talented WBC featherweight champ, with a knowing grin. He exuded confidence as his Puerto Rican salsa band duked it out with a Mexican mariachi troupe. There was no evidence that he’d had trouble making weight that morning. He was so good, so self-believing, that he didn’t feel even Sanchez stood a chance against him.

That all changed in round one when Sanchez dropped him with a whistling left hook. While planted on the canvas, Gomez looked up at Sanchez as if to say: “Wait. I’m not the only superhero on this planet?” He took a beating the rest of the round and was lucky to survive.

But we learned all we needed to learn about Gomez in the following seven rounds. Even though he was fighting through a thick fog, even though he’d been concussed and battered – he battled back with a ferocity and often on even terms. He fought with grit and even with his face ballooning and his eye closing grotesquely, he gave Sanchez as good as he was getting. Often overlooked after the surprising result are the fierce exchanges between the two superstars.

Bazooka would not go down without a fight. And he didn’t. You’d need a million spreadsheets to measure the guts Gomez displayed

Finally, the brilliance of Sanchez shone through, and he ended Gomez’s night in round eight. It was a big upset and it hurled Sanchez into the stratosphere of boxing greatness.

But it was not the end for Bazooka. Not by a long shot.

Smartly, Gomez realized at the time he was a junior featherweight and not a featherweight, and he returned to his familiar 122 pounds and picked up where he left off. He made three more defenses of his title before defending against another Mexican superstar, Lupe Pintor.

Pintor, the longtime WBC bantamweight champ, was doing what Gomez had tried to do against Sanchez – move up four pounds and annex another divisional world title. And so he too had something to prove when they met on December 3, 1982, at the Superdome in New Orleans.

The Gomez-Pintor fight happened about three weeks after the first Aaron Pryor-Alexis Arguello classic in Miami and about a week before the fourth slugfest between Bobby Chacon and Bazooka Limon in Sacramento. Those who saw Gomez-Pintor in New Orleans say it was better than both.

In a fight that enhanced the famous Puerto Rican-Mexican rivalry, the two little warriors produced the Hispanic version of the “Thrilla in Manila.” The pace was frenetic, the exchanges were fierce and the skill was elite. Right when it looked like one guy had the advantage, the other would rally. It was what Larry Merchant said about Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales 18 years later: “they are emptying themselves.”

Unlike the Sanchez fight, Gomez – his face again ravaged by war – somehow survived the intense Pintor onslaught and came back to score an incredible 14^th-round knockout.

You would think a fight that brutal would spell the end for Gomez. But no. Thirteen months later, in 1984, he turned to his boxing skills and dominated fellow Puerto Rican Juan LaPorte to finally win his second divisional title – the late Sanchez’s old WBC featherweight title. It was a remarkable performance for the 27-year-old. And one that belied his tough guy image. Bazooka was on top again. But the sand was running out of the hourglass.

He was knocked out by Azumah Nelson in late 1984 and not given much of a chance to defeat WBA junior lightweight champ Rocky Lockridge for his third divisional title in 1985. But the fight was on Gomez’s home turf, and he got the benefit of the doubt in winning a controversial 15-round decision. It would be the last major win of his career.

He retired in 1989 with a record of 44-3-1 (42 knockouts) – a 95 percent career knockout rate – and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1995. Like fellow Puerto Rican great Wilfred Benitez and many others from that era, Gomez’s health took a terrible turn and Bazooka suffered over the last years of his life.

But whatever boxing event he appeared, he had that big smile. You got the feeling that if he had the chance, he’d do it all over again.

As it turned out, the diminutive, bushy-headed boxer dressed in the red, white and blue was more than a phenom. He was arguably the greatest Puerto Rican fighter in boxing history.

Matthew Aguilar

Matthew Aguilar is a columnist and sportswriter. Over his nearly 30-year writing career, he has contributed to Associated Press, USA Today, The RING, Ringside Seat, Boxing Weekly, many newspapers within the Gannett newspaper company and his hometown El Paso Times, where he covered everything from college football and basketball to rodeo. Now based in Chicago, he is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, the Transnational Boxing Rankings and is a voter for the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the El Paso Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013.

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