Edwin Rosario

Edwin "El Chapo" Rosario (1961-1997) could be considered a boxing version of the Puerto Rican plant "Mori-vivi" (Mori-Vivi means dead-alive in Spanish). Unfortunately, his long battle with a suspected drug addiction caused him to die in truth at the age of 36. "Chapo", as he was known around the world of boxing, was born in Barrio Candelaria, Toa Baja, an extremely poor "barrio" filled with children and dogs playing in sandy streets. Chapo's brother Papo Rosario was a budding professional boxer expected to become one of Puerto Rico's greatest all-time fighters. Chapo was inspired by Papo, and had a stellar amateur boxing career.

Papo died unexpectedly, supposedly due to drugs, two years after his brother's move to professional boxing. Chapo persevered, wanting to honor his brother's memory by winning a world championship. He scored big knockout wins over Young Ezzard Charles and Edwin Viruet, the former in 3 rounds as the Holmes-Cooney undercard. He eventually gained a record of 20-0 with 18 knockouts. This led to talks of a title fight against world lightweight champion Alexis Arguello, to be held in Miami, but Arguello abandoned the division to challenge Aaron Pryor in a rematch.

Rosario then was matched with Mexico's Jose Luis Ramirez on May 1, 1983. Rosario dominated the first 7 rounds, but tired down the stretch to make for a very close fight. The judges, as well as most of the public present, felt Rosario had done enough to win, and Edwin Rosario had become world lightweight champion by the unanimous score of 115-113 on all 3 judging cards. Rosario injured his hand during the fight and needed surgery, for which the World Boxing Council gave him a dispense.

Rosario returned to the ring in 1984. In his first defense of the title, he faced Roberto Elizondo, who had lasted 7 rounds with Arguello in a previous world title challenge and was expected to give Rosario a tough challenge. However, Chapo knocked out Elizondo in a single round. Howard Davis Jr proved more of a challenge -- he led Rosario on all scorecards with ten seconds remaining in the bout, but was dropped by Chapo and lost a split decision.

A rematch with Ramirez was scheduled, again in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on November 3, 1984. Rosario dropped Ramirez once in round one and again in the second, but Ramirez was well trained and got off the canvas to take Rosario's title away with a four round TKO. This was Rosario's first defeat, and he seemed to never fully recover.

Rosario won a comeback fight against future world champion Frankie Randall in London and then had to wait one more year before an opportunity to recover the title. On June 13, 1986, he met world champion Hector 'Macho' Camacho at the Madison Square Garden in New York. The fight was televised by HBO, and although Rosario shook Camacho badly in the fifth round and rallied down the stretch, Camacho swept the middle rounds and the judges thought that had been enough for him to retain the title by a split decision. To this day, fans debate whether Rosario or Camacho deserved the win.

Because of the closeness of that bout, the WBA gave him a chance to challenge the other world lightweight champion, Livingstone Bramble. Rosario went to Miami and defeated Bramble by a knockout in the second round to become world lightweight champion for the second time. His pose, raising his arms after the fight, became Ring Magazine's cover for the next month -- the only time Rosario was featured on the cover of that magazine's English version. He defended the title against fellow Puerto Rican Juan Nazario with a knockout in eight in Chicago, but in his next defense he gave the title away to Julio César Chávez in Las Vegas. By the eleventh round, Rosario's eye was almost completely shut and he was spitting blood from his mouth; the fight was stopped by the referee, and Rosario lost.

Rosario again took off for one year, but after Chavez vacated the title in 1989, Rosario came back and won it again, beating tough Kronk prospect Anthony Jones for the championship. Rosario joined the short group of men who had become world champions 3 times in the same division. This time, however, he didn't last long; he gave Nazario a rematch, and Nazario stopped him on cuts in 1990 at the Madison Square Garden in the 8th round.

Once again, Rosario came back like the "mori-vivi". He moved up a weight class to the Junior Welterweight division, and then defeated defending world champion Loreto Garza in three rounds in Sacramento's Arco Arena to become a world champion for the 4th time. However, personal problems started to take their toll. For his first defense, against Japanese Akinobu Hiranaka in Mexico City in 1992, he clearly was not the same Chapo his fans had grown accustomed to.

Chapo disappeared from the boxing scene, but years later showed up on the wrong end of the newspapers, having been arrested after stealing some beer from a supermarket. He vowed to stay clean and went into a program to achieve this. In 1997, he won two comeback fights, then won the Caribbean welterweight title by beating Roger Arias of Nicaragua in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, in a twelve-round decision. Chapo, once an HBO staple, was now fighting on small cards without any TV showings. He was, however, ranked #10 among Oscar de la Hoya's challengers at the welterweight division after his win over Arias, making him an official world title challenger once again.

However, Rosario died before any more fights could take place, dying of an aneurysm in December 1997. Many celebrities and dignitaries attended his funeral, and a group of Puerto Rican world boxing champions were among the pallbearers. More than five thousand people came to the funeral or watched from their homes as the coffin was driven from the funeral home to the cemetery. On January 12, 2006 Edwin "El Chapo" Rosario was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, thus becoming the sixth Puerto Rican inducted into the hall.

See also

* List of famous Puerto Ricans
* List of lightweight boxing champions

* List of WBC world champions
* Hector Camacho versus Edwin Rosario
* List of Puerto Rican boxing world champions

External links

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