K.O.W. - The Puncher from Ponce

I watched another one of those Curt Gowdy boxing shows this past week, this one on the great lightweights in history with Jose Torres as guest. Having Torres on the show took a little of the suspense out of who at least one of the featured fighters would be, as Jose of course pushed his Puerto Rican countryman Carlos Ortiz as the greatest 135 of all time. For his part, Gowdy made an unconvincing argument for Benny Leonard. Not that there isn't an argument to be made for "The Ghetto Wizard" - he seems to be the consensus choice of the experts - but Gowdy just wasn't the man to make the case.

Myself, I was hoping that Ike Williams would get a bone thrown to him, and they did show some clips of Ike, particularly his bout with Beau Jack (great boxer name) from 1948 that is pure Corrales/Castillo material from start to finish.

But because of Torres, the focus was on Ortiz, and that's fair enough - they're not only both Puerto Rican, they're from the same hometown, Ponce. Ortiz was the second world champion ever from P.R. after the legendary Sixto Escobar - Torres was the third. So for the No Mas Knockout of the Week, I went with this famous Ortiz knockout of Manny Pacquiao's hard-punching Filipino ancestor, Gabriel "Flash" Elorde (man do boxers have great names) from 1966. This was the second time that Elorde challenged Ortiz for the lightweight title, and the second time that he was stopped in the 14th round. I love how once Elorde has been counted out, Ortiz passes over his prostrate body on the canvas, takes one look down, and moves on. "I'll talk to him later," he thinks.