Wilfredo Gómez vs. Carlos Zárate was a professional boxing match contested between WBC super bantamweight champion Wilfredo Gómez and ómezvsCarlosZáWBC bantamweight champion Carlos Zárate, with Gómez' super bantamweight title on the line. The bout took place on October 28, 1978, at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Gómez retained his title via fifth-round technical knockout (TKO). Many experts credit this fight as the beginning of the Mexico–Puerto Rico boxing rivalry.
Background
The first world title fight involving a Puerto Rican and a Mexican involved Rodolfo Casanova of Mexico (29-3, 23 knockout wins coming in) and Sixto Escobar of Barceloneta, Puerto Rico (21-8-2, 7 knockouts coming in). This bout took place on June 26, 1934, at the Forum in Montreal, Canada and it was for the Montreal Athletic Commission's vacant version of the world's Bantamweight title. Escobar won the fight by ninth round knockout and thus he became Puerto Rico's first world boxing champion, being the object of a large welcoming at the San Juan seaport days later. Escobar later unified the world Bantamweight title with a win over Tony Marino.
Over the next few decades, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans fought each other sporadically, sometimes with world titles at stake. Such was the case when Carlos Ortiz fought Battling Torres and José "Pipino" Cuevas's three victories over Puerto Rican Angel Espada.
The boxers
Carlos Zárate
Carlos Zárate of Tepito was born on May 23, 1951; he debuted as a professional boxer on February 22, 1970, with a second round knockout of Luis Castaneda in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and had a string of 22 consecutive knockout wins broken by Victor Ramirez, who went ten rounds before losing on points with Zárate on January 30, 1974, at Mexico City. He then won 16 more, all by knockout, to become 38-0, with 37 knockout wins, coming into his world title challenge of WBC world Bantamweight champion, the fellow Mexican Rodolfo Martinez. The Martinez-Zárate fight took place on May 8, 1976, in Inglewood, California. Zárate lifted the WBC world bantamweight title from Martinez by a ninth round knockout, therefore becoming a national hero in Mexico, where boxers, specially bantamweight division ones, were seen as popular role models by the public.
Before fighting Gómez, Zárate had to overcome another popular foe in WBA world Bantamweight champion, the also Mexican Alfonso Zamora, in a bout that took place on April 23, 1977, in Inglewood. The Battle of the Z Boys was a widely expected and hoped for fight that would unify the world bantamweight title but both the WBA and WBC withheld recognition of it as a world title fight. Zárate won the bout by fourth round technical knockout and was therefore, viewed by boxing fans and the press as the superior of the two reigning world bantamweight champions. By then he had another streak of knockouts that had reached 23 in a row by that point; he would keep defending his WBC world championship defeating the likes of Danilo Batista, future world champion Alberto Davila and Puerto Rico's Andres Hernandez, among others, while racking up six more straight knockout wins for his second knockout win streak to reach 29 in a row before the Gómez fight. Zárate was 52-0, with 51 wins by knockout, before the fight. Zárate was considered the number 1 boxer pound for pound in the world by Ring Magazine before the Gómez showdown.
Wilfredo Gómez
Wilfredo Gómez was born on October 29, 1956, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. As a teenager, he represented his home country at the 1972 summer Olympics flyweight competition in Munich, Germany, getting eliminated in the second round after getting a bye in the first round. He won, however, the world amateur championship in 1974 at Havana, Cuba. Having completed an amateur boxing record of 96 wins and 3 losses, Gómez became a professional boxer on November 16, 1974, relegated to a six rounds draw (tie) against Jacinto Fuentes in Panama City, Panama. Gómez lived in Central America during this period; he then won six in a row by knockout, including a rematch win against Fuentes, before debuting as a professional in his home country of Puerto Rico by taking out 14-2 Joe Guevara in six rounds, September 19, 1975, in San Juan.