Wednesday, April 13, 2011

"Inside the Forum": Alfonso Zamora

Click on the photo for a larger view

I found this gem at the Long Beach Coin, Stamps and Collectible Expo earlier this year. The title is "Inside the Forum", dated February 1975. It speaks briefly about  Mexico's Alfonso Zamora's upcoming bout with WBA bantamweight champ Soo-Hwan Hong of Korea, at the Forum in Inglewood, California.

Zamora would win the fight and the title with a fourth round knockout of Soo-Hwan Hong. The fight was scheduled for 15 rounds. The referee for the fight was George Latka. Zamora would run up a streak of eight wins, all by KO, including a win over future WBA featherweight Champ, Panamanian Eusebio Pedroza, stopping him in 2 rounds, and knocking out Soo-Hwan Hong in their rematch in October of 1976.

In April of 1977, 34 years ago this month, Zamora would meet fellow Mexican knockout sensation, WBC Champion, Carlos Zarate, in what would be labeled, the "Battle of the Z Boys". It would be a 10 round non-title fight. the fight would take place at the Forum. The referee was Richard Steele. Both fighters were extremely popular and had their own following.Zamora would end up being stopped by Zarate when his father threw the towel in the ring, thereby ending the fight.

Zamora would fight eight more times, including a KO by Jorge Lujan in his next fight, losing his WBA title, he would stop popular local favorite Alberto "Superfly" Sandoval in 8 rounds. He would have his last fight at the Olympic Auditorium with Rigoberto Estrada, getting stopped in the 3rd round.

9 comments:

brian said...

Could be a 'short-term memory thing',but somehow I always remembered Zarate-Zamora as 'Battle of the Z
Bombs(at least in Sports Illustrated..?);thanks to Youtube,I finally got to see it.But I remember it was shown on close circuit TV;I guess they had a guilty conscience for not making
Ruben Olivares' fights more high-profile..

Randy De La O said...

I double checked, it's Z Boys (if they were fighting today it would probably "Z Boyz". I think I like Z Bombs better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Z_Boys

brian said...

I don't see 'The Battle' part...
and if you tell me something 5 seconds ago,there's no way I'll remember.But,when I googled 'Battle of the Z bombs'...:


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1091864/1/index.htm

brian said...

..also 'The Killer Z's' by Ted Sares...


http://boxinggreats.multiply.com/journal/item/145/ZARATE_AND_ZAMORA_THE_KILLER_Zs_by_Ted_Sares

Randy De La O said...

For some reason I can't get into the Sports illustrated site.

I've seen Ted's article before. Killer Z's is pretty accurate. Carlos' punches just had a little more Z's in them!

brian said...

...I didn't get it from their site;if you
google 'battle of the Z Bombs Sports Illustrated','Z Bombs' by
Pat Putnam should come up-that's probably what stayed in my brain all these years..great article..

Randy De La O said...

Found it! I'm getting too sleepy to read it tonight. It's a long article.

brian said...

I just found one on the fight itself from Sports Illustrated...google 'How to get zapped and still be a champ Pat Putnam'.

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