Antonio Esparragoza

Antonio Esparragoza Betancourt (usually known without his last name) is a popular boxing champion who competed in the Featherweight Division. In fact, he had a stellar career that he is now considered as one of the greatest fighters of all time, ranking 75 in the list of 100 Greatest Punchers.

Esparragoza was born on September 2, 1959, in his hometown Cumana, Venezuela. His official record states that he is five feet seven inches and weighs 126 pounds.

His career in boxing somehow started late. He competed in 1980 in Moscow, Russia for the Olympic Games. He was pitted against Peter Hanlon, a British boxer, in the Featherweight Boxing Competition where he lost.

However, that didn’t stop him from pursuing boxing professionally. He had his debut in the succeeding year, against Anthony Wanza, in Cumana. In the same year, he had three more bouts against other Venezuelan fighters. All of them lost their bouts against Esparragoza by a technical knockout.

For around 5 years, Esparragoza battled against other boxers only in Latin countries such as Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. He also never really had the chance to come face to face against the so-called heavyweights until 1987.

At this year, he was given an opportunity to battle it out against Steve Cruz, which also boasted an impressive boxing record, for the WBA Featherweight title. The game was held in Fort Worth, Texas. Thought the fight lasted for twelve rounds, Esparragoza ultimately coveted the title from Cruz after the latter lost through a TKO.

All throughout his professional years, he had defeated big names such as Johnny dela Rosa, Bernardo Checa, Eduardo Montoya, Jean-Marc Renard, and Mitsuru Sugiya. He also had to defend his title for a total of 7 times until he lost it in 1991 to Yong-Kyun Park through a unanimous decision.

After the title loss, Esparragoza never fought again. Nevertheless, he will always be remembered for his explosive moves that gave him 30 wins, 27 of which were due to TKO.