Big future awaits Cuban boxers
Diplomatic exchanges are not normally associated with boxing but those that have been taking place between the long-estranged governments of the United States and Cuba may have a dramatic effect on the sport’s future.
The apparent thawing of relations between the two countries may result in the lifting of travel and work restrictions which have prohibited many great stars of Cuban sport from turning professional.
Cuba has always produced great fighters since Fidel Castro’s Communist government took power in the early 1960s but it’s been impossible for them to punch for pay without fleeing into exile.
The island had already relaxed its anti-pro stance sufficiently to enter a team, the Cuba Domadores (which fittingly translates as “ringmasters”), in the pro-am World Series Boxing. They are the defending champions, with a squad containing several Olympic prospects — who receive prize-money.
In the past Cuba produced great fighters who became world champions but had to defect to do so, sometimes by hopping on a boat or clinging to a raft for the risky crossing of the Florida Straits to Miami.
Now the word is that, under Fidel’s more sports-friendly brother Raul Castro, this bar will gradually be lifted, and I believe eventually we may even see professional tournaments being staged in Havana.
The signs are good. Cuban émigrés already abound in boxing, names such as Guillermo Rigondeaux, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Yoan Pablo Hernandez and Rances Barthelemy featuring either as champions or high in the current world rankings.
Another of them, Richar Abril, will be here on March 6 to defend his WBA world lightweight title against Derry Mathews on a Box-Nation-televised show in Liverpool. His story indicates how far Cuba may be softening its hardline attitude.
A former amateur with over 200 bouts, unlike those compatriots who can’t return to Cuba he is still able to go back regularly from his home in Miami because the lanky counterpuncher won a lottery system which allows him to freely come and go.
Cuba, where the sport was prohibited until 1921, has one of the world’s richest boxing histories with major stars such as Kid Chocolate, Kid Gavilan, Jose Napoles, Luis Rodriguez, Benny Paret, Sugar Ramos, Jose Legra and Florentino Fernandez.
The majority of fighters remained loyal to the Castro regime. The most illustrious was the late triple Olympic heavyweight champion Teofilo Stevenson, as handsome as Muhammad Ali with a more devastating punch. No wonder they called him Castro’s right-hand man.
He was around when Ali was at his peak in the Seventies — and what a fight that would have been! But instead Stevenson went into politics, rejecting massive offers to turn pro because he knew it would have meant defecting from his beloved homeland. He said: “What is one million dollars to the love of eight million Cubans?”
His successor, another three-times Olympic heavyweight champion, Felix Savon, similarly stayed amateur, as did the silky-skilled southpaw who pipped Amir Khan for the Olympic lightweight gold at the 2004 Athens Olympics, Mario Kindelan.
I suppose one question worrying the Cuban regime is how much professionalism might affect an Olympic boxing programme in which they have amassed 67 medals (34 golds). But no doubt they will have noted that Russia and its former satellite nations have not suffered too badly in this respect since opening up to professionalism — and also dominate many boxing divisions, from Wladimir Klitschko downwards.
So stand by, Michael Buffer. The Cubans are getting ready to rumble.