Luis Angel Firpo, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Posted by: garmin_geek
S 34° 35.206 W 058° 23.653
21H E 372134 N 6171897
Nickname: El Toro Salvaje de las Pampas (The Wild Bull of the Pampas), he fought Jack Dempsey in 1923 for the heavyweight title and lost. A more than life size statue stands outside his mausoleum in the Recoleta Cemetery.
Waymark Code: WMGMGY
Location: Argentina
Date Posted: 03/20/2013
Views: 4
Nickname(s) El Toro Salvaje de las Pampas
Height 6 feet 2.5 inches (1.89 m)
Born 11 October 1894
Junín, Buenos Aires
Died August 7, 1960(1960-08-07) (aged 65)
Firpo challenged world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey at New York on September 14, 1923 becoming the first Latin American in history to challenge for the title.
Firpo was floored seven times in the first round of the bout, before he trapped Dempsey against the ropes and launched a combination that sent the champion out of the ring. Dempsey hit his head against a writer's typing machine, and for a moment, it looked as if Firpo would become world Heavyweight champion. But Dempsey was helped into the ring at the count of nine (in spite of having been seventeen seconds outside the ring; fighters are given a twenty-second count when they are knocked through the ropes) and he eventually knocked out Firpo in the second round. This fight has been regarded by critics and experts as one of the greatest fights in history. Boxing historian Bert Sugar called it the greatest fight in the history of the sport. Despite losing, Firpo gained substantial fame all over Latin America after this bout, as many people on different parts of that region spoke about his feat of dropping Dempsey. This fight remained so inspirational that, for instance, lead to the naming of the Salvadorian football club C.D. Luis Ángel Firpo after him.
Retirement
Afterwards, Firpo became a car-dealer for Stutz and a rancher. By 1940 he was ranching on a large scale in Carlos Casares with 8,000 cattle, 4,000 sheep and 400 horses. He discovered Abel Cestac in July 1940. Firpo and Jack Dempsey agreed to jointly manage Cestac, who went on to become the South American heavyweight champion.On his passing in 1960, Luis Firpo was buried in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.
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