{"id":8301,"date":"2015-09-02T17:08:14","date_gmt":"2015-09-02T17:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/?p=8301"},"modified":"2015-09-03T02:56:34","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T02:56:34","slug":"yaqui-lopez-remembers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/yaqui-lopez-remembers\/","title":{"rendered":"Yaqui Lopez Remembers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tPlease trust that people often used to tell me, \u201cYou have the best memory of anyone I ever met.\u201d I could, and often still can, recall details of events decades ago and usually enhance the anecdote by noting the month and year: I moved to California in July 1958, I got my first car in February 1969, you got drunk at the party and fell on the floor in June 1970, and, yes, I was already down there. <\/p>\n

\tThough I knew time had diminished my ability to rapidly memorize a roomful of names and faces, I was unprepared for the following display of forgetfulness during a recent fundraiser in Anaheim for former champion boxer Bobby Chacon, who is now impaired by dementia pugilistica. I was drying my hands in the men\u2019s room when a light heavyweight contender from the seventies, Yaqui Lopez, entered.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHi,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m Tom Clark and would like to tell you that your fights against, against, uh, your fights against\u2026.Marvin Johnson.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI never fought Marvin Johnson,\u201d said Yaqui, a gentle man who kindly looked at me as I struggled. <\/p>\n

\t\u201cYes, yes,\u201d I said. \u201cI meant those great fights you had with\u2026with\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cMatthew Saad Muhammad. His name used to be Matt Franklin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cOf course. I just said Johnson to come up with someone from that era.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWhat\u2019s perplexing is why I couldn\u2019t remember Muhammad, about whom I’d written just last year when he passed away: \u201cMatthew Saad Muhammad Goes Home\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n

\t\u201cI\u2019d like to tell you that your second fight with Muhammad was one of the greatest fights of the century.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tYaqui Lopez is a modest man but he didn\u2019t deflect the compliment. He knows it was one of the most rousing slugfests in the annals of pugilism. <\/p>\n

\tIn their first fight, in 1979, Lopez and Muhammad had pummeled each other for eleven rounds until Lopez wilted while the supernaturally robust champion kept firing. The following year the men resumed their bombardments and in the eighth round Muhammad was hitting Lopez with power punches, backing him against the ropes, and commentator Gil Clancy prepared to bury Yaqui when, suddenly and with sustained ferocity, he landed a right and left and right and a left, some of the left hooks to the body, others to the head, the rights hitting Muhammad\u2019s concrete jaw, and Yaqui continued unloading big lefts and rights, punching accurately, punching frenetically, knowing that now, after four unsuccessful title attempts, he was close, he was ready to become champion of the world. Matthew Saad Muhammad, as he\u2019d so often done \u2013 but would not be able to do much longer \u2013 took more punishment than his opponent should\u2019ve been delivering, and Yaqui tired late in the round and was stopped in the fourteenth. This collision was voted 1980 fight of the year and the immortal eighth was of course the round of the year.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThank you,\u201d said Yaqui Lopez. He shook my hand in the soft style of boxers who protects their hands and those of others. <\/p>\n

\tYaqui Lopez had seventy-six professional fights, many against exceptional fighters \u2013 Michael Spinks, Victor Galindez, John Conteh, James Scott, and others \u2013 yet at age sixty-four his memory, at least at that moment, worked better than mine. I wasn\u2019t a gladiator but ancient nocturnal habits may have damaged me and be why Yaqui scored a knockout in this meeting of minds. <\/p>\n

The Unforgettable Eighth Round: Lopez v. Muhammad<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please trust that people often used to tell me, \u201cYou have the best memory of anyone I ever met.\u201d I could, and often still can, recall details of events decades ago and usually enhance the anecdote by noting the month and year: I moved to California in July 1958, I got my first car in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,1060,58,967,34,1173,1174],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nYaqui Lopez Remembers - George Thomas Clark<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/yaqui-lopez-remembers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Yaqui Lopez Remembers - 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