Typical of the man, who was the bravest most courageous of fighters, that although he had been affected by various illnesses for some time, he bravely battled\u00a0on, attending\u00a0\u00a0WBC events, always smiling and being greeted by his many friends and fans, who admired him as a fighter and as a man.\u00a0\u00a0Today that struggle came to an \u00a0he came to the end. with his children and grandchildren at his bedside in Mexico City. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>\u201cMantequilla” was born on April 13, 1940 in Santiago de Cuba, but as a young man he traveled to Mexico, and was soon \u00a0thrilling fans with his lion hearted power and steadfast courage, so much so that they promptly adopted him as one of their very own.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>The then president of Mexico, Gustavo D\u00edaz Ordaz, granted him Mexican nationality, exactly one day after he was crowned world welterweight champion, by defeating Texan Curtis Cokes on points, on April 18, 1969, at the Inglewood Forum, in a promotion by George Parnassus.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>During his career, “Mantequilla” defeated the best fighters of his era, including\u00a0 Curtis Cokes, Emile Griffith, Ernie Lopez and Alfredo Urbina.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>On December 6, 1975, in a titanic fight, he lost the world crown against Briton John H Stracey. During his career he hammered and shaped a tremendously \u00a0impressive record of 81 wins with 54 knockouts and just 7 losses. Jose Napolis is forever revered as one of the Fifty Plus KO Elite.<\/span><\/p>\n John H Stracey said: “I`m so very proud to have shared a ring with the Great Jose Napolis.\u00a0 What a magnificent fighter he was and what a great champion.\u00a0 Look how long he reigned as a champion.\u00a0 This is such a sad day.”<\/span><\/p>\n In his chosen professionalism, he was directed and guided\u00a0by Cubans Cuco Conde and Kid Rapidez, manager and coach respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 Angel was a close friend of Don Jos\u00e9 Sulaiman and Mauricio Sulaiman, Presidents of the WBC, who were always took care of him and his health.<\/span><\/p>\n The Telmex-Telcel Ring Program, under the leadership of Don Carlos Slim, granted him a lifetime pension and the services of the Mexican Social Security Institute.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>The World Boxing Council is in deep mourning with the departure of one of the very\u00a0greatest welterweight champions of all time and one of the most beloved people in this sport. A fierce competitor in the ring, he was a kind gentleman outside of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Rest in Peace Dear champion! Thank you for the wonderful everlasting memories.<\/span><\/p>\n ALL TIME GREAT JOSE ANGEL \u201cMANTEQUILLA\u201d NAPOLES HAS DIED It is with \u00a0profound sorrow, \u00a0that we report that Jose Angel \u201cMantequilla\u201d Napoles Colombat died today,\u00a0and with\u00a0his [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,121,120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-main-news","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19549","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=19549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"http:\/\/suljosblog.com\/suljos\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MANTEQUILLAS.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/suljosblog.com\/suljos\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MANTEQUILLAS.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"