{"id":160855,"date":"2025-08-12T14:11:57","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T20:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/?p=160855"},"modified":"2025-08-13T12:13:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T18:13:59","slug":"heaven-can-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/heaven-can-wait\/","title":{"rendered":"\ufeff Heaven Can Wait"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heaven Can Wait<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By James Blears<\/p>\n

On this day of August 12th, we are standing, square and around,\u00a0 in the Panteon\u00a0 of Santiago Tianguistengo, Estado de Mexico, in torrential rain, whistful, reminiscing about the brief but lasting brilliance of Salvador Sanchez,\u00a0 who shone like a comet on the cusp of the horizon. An Eternal Beacon.<\/p>\n

Reigning WBC featherweight champion with a record of 44-1-1, 32 KO\u2019s and forever aged twenty three.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For true and discerning fight fans, who can ever forget those two legendary wars of attrition against Danny \u201cLittle Red\u201d Lopez, the cannonade stand and deliver ate in eight KO of Wilfredo Gomez, or the final grandstand TKO of young, aspiring and inspiring Azumah \u201cProf\u201d Nelson?<\/p>\n

There was then talk of match up against WBC lightweight champion Alexis Arguello. But Sal\u2019s car in collision with the back of a trailer on the
\nQueretaro to San Luis Potos\u00ed Highway,\u00a0 forever extinguishing that and his so promising young life.<\/p>\n

Over the years Wilfredo Gomez, Juan La Porte and other fellow champions have come here to pay tribute to an All time Great,\u00a0 who is also admired by Roy Jones Jr,\u00a0 Sugar Ray Leonard and many other icons, not just for his punching power, but also for his defence, masterly ring generalship and catlike reflexes. A natural. It\u2019s impossible to be neutral about greatness.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Both Sal and the wondrous\u00a0 Julio Cesar Chavez had the same Coach, the late great Cristobsl Rosas. Julio\u2019s final famed tallly, as a three division champion was 107-6-2, 85 KO\u2019s.<\/p>\n

If\u2026they had fought and it\u2019s an impossible, fleeting day dream, it would have probably been at super featherweight. Julio held thd WBC title between 1984-1987.<\/p>\n

Although Sal and Julio had very different styles, physicality they matched up fittingly well.<\/p>\n

Salvador was five feet six inches tall with a sixty eight in reach. Julio, just one and a half inches taller and the same reach.<\/p>\n

Holy Moses whaf a fight and what a night it would have been, emerging from the rushes.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nRuben Castillo who fought both Sal and Julio was not able to attend this event, but in a phone call he said said they were as different as chalk and cheese.<\/p>\n

Salvador threw and landed more punches but Ruben went the full distance to loose a decision.<\/p>\n

Julio stopped Ruben in six rounds. Ruben had six stitches in his left eyebrow afterwards,\u00a0 a fractured right cheekbone and two broken ribs. Ruben laughs as he says that never,\u00a0 in his born days and eighty two pro fights was he hit so hard!<\/p>\n

Ruben firmly declined Don King\u2019s offer of a rematch with Julio, questioning the sanity of it.<\/p>\n

He says that he found Salvador a quiet person while Julio is more outgoing, gregarious and loquacious.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Juan LaPorte who came\u00a0 all the way from Puerto Rico to pay his respects said Sal was a gentleman a superb thinking intelligent fighter and generous. After their fight Sal told him he would certainly be a world champion and so it was. An opponent but then a friend.<\/p>\n

Municipal President Erika Patricia Olea De La Torre said Sal is remembered and honored chin every corner of his home town and Mexico. His memory will always be cherished.<\/p>\n

Mariachis seronaded\u00a0 at the service of remembrance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heaven Can Wait By James Blears On this day of August 12th, we are standing, square and around,\u00a0 in the Panteon\u00a0 of Santiago Tianguistengo, Estado de [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":160856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-news","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}