Sanchez the latest NM fighter to try Top Rank
Tapia, Romero also signed with promotional giant
Long and complicated. Often turbulent, just as often successful. A headache for all parties involved at times, but never dull.
Those words encapsulate the relationship between Top Rank, Inc., and New Mexico boxers.
On Monday, Albuquerque featherweight Jason Sanchez (13-0, six knockouts) signed a four-year contract with Top Rank. He’s the fifth New Mexico fighter (all from Albuquerque) to have signed with the boxing promotional powerhouse. His predecessors:
■ Tommy Cordova, 1984-87 (approximate).
■ Johnny Tapia, 1988-97, 1999, 2004-06.
■ Danny Romero, 1993-95, 1999-2000.
■ Ray Sanchez III, 2006-08.
Several other New Mexico fighters have performed on Top Rank cards but never were signed to contracts.
Jason Sanchez’s contract calls for a minimum of three bouts per year over the course of the contract, Top Rank matchmaker Brad Goodman said.
His likely debut with the company will be Jan. 12, Goodman said, probably in Texas against an opponent yet to be named.
Chances are good, Goodman said, that Top Rank will at some point bring a show to Albuquerque with Sanchez on the card. The history:
■ Cordova, a wildly entertaining junior lightweight, signed with Top Rank in November 1984. But the firm stopped using the defense-challenged “El Torito” and urged him to retire after his loss by ninth-round TKO to future world champion Steve Cruz in December 1985.
Cordova, 18-3-1 for his career after the loss to Cruz, would fight another seven years — losing 11 of his last 15 bouts.
■ Tapia didn’t actually sign with Top Rank until long after he began fighting on its cards in 1988. From a search in the Journal’s archives, it’s not clear when he first put ink to paper. But he signed what was termed a new contract with Top Rank in 1996, then left to sign with Don King after his victory over Romero in July 1997.
He re-signed with Top Rank in 1999, but the renewed relationship blew up that same year when Tapia lost for the first of two times to fellow Top Rank fighter Paulie Ayala.
After losing another close decision to Ayala in October 2000, Tapia — a promotional free agent at the time — accused Top Rank President Bob Arum of somehow manipulating the outcome. That, he said, went for the first Ayala fight as well.
Even so, Tapia and Top Rank reunited in 2004, in the twilight of the five-time world champion’s career. But that contract was terminated by mutual consent in 2006.
Yet, the Tapia-Top Rank relationship, in the person of matchmaker and company vice president Bruce Trampler, endured until the legendary boxer’s death in 2012.
When Trampler was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2010, he thanked in his speech only one of the hundreds of fighters with whom he’d worked: Johnny Tapia.
Last year, Tapia followed Trampler into the IBHOF.
■ Romero was 13-0 with 11 knockouts when he signed with Top Rank in 1993. Under its auspices, though the relationship often had been toxic, he won his first world title — defeating Colombia’s Francisco Tejedor in April 1995. But later that year, after losing for the first time as a pro to Mexico’s Willy Salazar, Romero left Top Rank for South African promoter Cedric Kushner. He was Romero’s promoter when “Kid Dynamite” lost to cross-town rival Tapia in 1997.
In 1999, Romero came back to Top Rank. But the two parted ways again the following year.
■ Ray Sanchez (no relation to Jason) had an 18-1 record (12 KOs) when he signed with Top Rank in 2006. But a brutal, December 2007 TKO loss at Tingley Coliseum to Julio César Chávez Jr., followed by a third-round TKO at the hands of fellow New Mexican Joaquin Zamora in September 2008, brought an end to Sanchez’s career.
It remains to be seen, of course, whether Top Rank can help Jason Sanchez reach the heights scaled by Tapia and Romero. But he already has shown himself to be a more complete fighter than was Cordova and one with a stronger chin than that of Ray Sanchez. Regardless, the Top Rank/ Albuquerque relationship continues.