Bernardo Paret Valdes Was Born, One of a Family of Seven Children, in Santa Clara
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Name: Benny Paret Career Record: http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=010925&cat=box er Alias: Kid Birth Name: Bernardo Paret Nationality: Cuban Birthplace: Santa Clara, Cuba Hometown: Santa Clara, Cuba Born: 1937-03-14 Died: 1962-04-03 Age at Death: 25 Stance: Orthodox Height: 5′ 7½″ Died on April 3, 1962, in New York City of injuries received during a world welterweight championship match against Emile Griffith on March 24. Bernardo Paret Valdes was born, one of a family of seven children, in Santa Clara. Cuba, about 100 miles east of the capital, Havana, on 14 March 1937. His father, Alberto, was a stonemason and his mother, Maxima, did her best to teach the children herself because they lived in an area where there was no school. When he was 12, Bernardo was sent to work on a sugar farm with friends of the family. Here, he spent the long summer days swimming and catching fish in the river...and boxing with other boys. The young Paret's earliest ambition was to become a baseball player, but in time he realized that he was more suited to fighting. When he was 13, an old boxer named Anguito took him in hand and taught him the basics. Then he let him loose to learn in the amateur game, first as a featherweight and then as a lightweight. SANTA START At 18, Paret made a winning professional debut, knocking out Esmeraldo Moya in one round, in Santa Clara. in August 1955. It was the first of six consecutive wins that year, and the other five went the scheduled distance of either four or six rounds. Even in those days, Paret was not blessed with chilling power. He could light, however, and learned to punch at a ferocious pace, drilling streams of punches into an opponent's body, gradually draining his energy. Managed by Manuel Alfaro and trained by Jose 'Caron' Gonzalez, Paret won his first 13 fights, in either Santa Clara or Havana, before losing his unbeaten record to Rolando Rodriguez on a second-round knockout, in November 1956. Although he avenged that by defeating Rodriguez three times in the following 14 months, Paret also lost an eight-round decision to Guillermo Diaz, in Havana, and was considered no more than an ordinary prospect. His results rarely drew more than a line to record their passing, and his name was often spelled Parets, with his first name sometimes shortened to Nardo. 'Nardo Parets' appears twice in the record of another future world welterweight champion from Cuba, Luis Rodriguez. There is no doubt that this is Paret...but there is a dispute over the result of their first bout, in Havana, in February 1958. It was reported as a win for Paret, hut the record books carried it as a win for Rodriguez, who was later referred to in reports as unbeaten. ST NICK'S REGULAR Paret made his New York_City debut in May 1958, with a six-round draw against Bobby Shell from Washington DC, in the St Nicholas Arena. He did well enough to return to St Nick's, on West 66th Street, the following month and hammered out a 10-round points win over Eddie Armstrong from Elizabeth, New Jersey. For five rounds, the smaller Armstrong gave a good account of himself, but then the 1501b Paret took over and won clearly. Back in Cuba, Paret stopped Agustin Rosales in eight rounds, but then lost the second fight with Luis Rodriguez, who won the Cuban title in his next bout. But by November 1958, Paret was back in New York City – this time for good. The St Nicholas Arena matchmaker Teddy Brenner was much more interested in Paret when, in his reappearance there, he flattened Andy Figaro of Puerto Rico after two minutes 19 seconds of the first round. At that stage, Paret, scaling 1541b, looked like developing into a middleweight. A 10-round points win followed against veteran Barry Allison, but it was a split decision victory over unbeaten Argentinian Victor Zalazar which caught the eye. Zalazar had won his previous 15 fights inside the distance, but Paret made light of his physical disadvantages to win with fast, snappy, combination punching. Zalazar stayed with him most of the way, but tired in the final stages. It was also Paret's first main event in New York. Ironically, an undercard slot featured a Brooklyn-based welterweight named Emile Alphonse Griffith. CROWD PLEASER Brenner knew a good attraction when he stumbled on it, and he made a Paret-Zalazar rematch the following month. This time Paret staggered Zalazar in the first, fourth and seventh rounds, but had to come through a rough patch in round three. In the end he simply stayed the pace better to win the decision. Any thoughts Paret might have had of driving himself into the middleweight world rankings were thwarted by his next two fights, which brought back-to-back points defeats at the hands of Cecil Shorts and Eddie 'Machine Gun' Thompson. At the time, few would have predicted that Paret would turn into a world champion, but at least his crowd-pleasing style ensured him plenty of work. In June 1959, he outpointed Rudy Sawyer from Harlem with a strong finish, but was still considered less of a prospect than his old rival Luis Rodriguez, who was already ranked seventh in the world, and the hard-hitting Florentino Fernandez. However, in August 1959, all that suddenly changed. GARDEN SUBSTITUTE Paret answered the call as a substitute for a substitute on a nationally televised show at Madison Square Garden and made the 1471h limit at short notice in time to meet world ranked Gaspar Ortega from Mexico. Ortega won a split decision, but Paret had proved his worth and there were experts at ringside who thought his neat skills and snappy punching should have been better rewarded. A trip to San Juan followed, where he held 1956 Olympian Jose Torres to a 10-round draw. Reports that returned to New York suggested Paret, who conceded five pounds to the fully blown middleweight, was unlucky. Torres, who was managed by Cus D'Amato, was an unbeaten 13- fight prospect at the time and, six years later, he would become world light-heavyweight champion. In December, Paret further enhanced his reputation against Charley Scott, who had won Ring magazine's prestigious 'Progress Award' for 1959. Paret swarmed all over Scott, crowding him, outpunching him and dropping him in the final round to take the decision. Although that result put Paret into the world ratings, there were those who considered it a fluke as he was still an astonishing seven places below Scott in the rankings. The only answer was to do it again, which was exactly what he did in a return at the end of January 1960. A flash knockdown in the fifth round gave Paret a split decision win, but it was much closer than their first battle. Suddenly, Paret was ranked number four, behind world welterweight champion Don Jordan who was having a terrible time behind the scenes. He lost twice in a row in non-title fights, including a bad knockout against Federico Thompson in Argentina, and was then diagnosed as suffering from a blood disorder when the police found him sleeping off a night on the town in his car. There were marital and backroom troubles too, and he owed money. Behind him, the contenders were queuing up. JORDAN'S SOFT OPTION Jordan's connections probably saw Paret as a reasonable option. They had to fight somebody and, although the Cuban had scored two points wins over a hot prospect and lost a split decision to Gaspar Ortega, he was still unproven, to some extent, at world class. His rating may even have turned out to be flattering, yet he would satisfy the critics who had been pouring scorn on Jordan for failing to put his title on the line. Paret signed for the fight, but first took what now seems a ridiculously tough warm-up, against Federico Thompson, the 32-year-old Argentinian who had knocked out Jordan in a non-title fight. The pair fought a gruelling 12-round draw and, since Paret already had a contract to fight Jordan, it was agreed that Thompson would meet the winner. On 27 May 1960, Paret challenged Jordan for the title, at the Las Vegas Convention Center – the first world title bout ever staged at the venue. It was also the first title fight –in Nevada since Jack Johnson knocked out James J. Jeffries, in Reno, in 1910. Outside the hall it was 89 degrees, but air conditioning made fighting, even under television lights, tolerable. The fight is featured in Video Action. Jordan was a miserable, forlorn figure. Before the fight, the $85,000 he would gross was already promised to his co-managers Don Nesseth and Jackie McCoy, and, on top of that, his wife was claiming half of his purse under the Nevada and California community property laws. As if that wasn't enough, Jordan had apparently pinched a nerve in his back during training. In the event, Paret took a comfortable decision. Afterwards Jordan said his left side had been numb from the end of round five. It was also revealed that he had a return clause in the contract, and said he would sue if that was not honoured. But Paret was committed to defend against Thompson inside three months, and the National Boxing Association also said the winner of the ParetThompson bout would have to defend against the number one contender Luis Rodriguez 90 days after that.