By James Blears

The greats Wilfredo Gomez and Juan Laporte traveled to Mexico to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of Salvador Sanchez’s death.

Azumah Nelson is desperately battling to overcome visa complications, so he can also attend.

Wilfredo and Juan attended a dinner at the superb Argentinian Restaurant Mi Viejo in Mexico City,  where the World Boxing Council and Sal’s Family paid tribute to his incredible and indelible memory.

Salvador leveled both Wilfredo and Azumah, and won a slugfest with Juan.

Wilfredo who was undefeated, moved up a division to clash with Salvador in 1981. The “Bazooka” who’d took out Carlos Zarate and Lupe Pintor,  in his incredible career which he notched up an 88 percent ko record and only three losses, could not match Sal’s firepower at featherweight, try as he might. And he was knocked out in eight brutal rounds, after a veritable ring war.

Wilfredo recalled: “The will to win between us was absolutely tremendous because both of us were desperate to be victorious . It was my first loss, and that night he was better than me. So that hurt me a lot. It was kind of humiliating. I’m convinced that Salvador Sanchez was the best Mexican fighter of all time. Even better than Julio Cesar Chavez.”

Such was his respect for his former ring foe that following Sal’s death, Wilfredo rushed to Mexico to pay his respects. And quarter of a century later, he’s come back!

Juan Laporte was a 21-year-old whipper snapper with only 15 fights when he dared to challenge Salvador in December 1980. Salvador was a young veteran of 39 fights. Sal won a unanimous decision, but Juan gave an extremely good account of himself, trading, slugging and suprising the great one, with his heart and firepower.

Juan who’s still trim and muscular, but just a bit grayer around the temples, grinned when he recalled their fight. He said: “It was a glorious night. I had a lot of confidence in myself, and my manager had a lot of confidence in me. It was without doubt my toughest fight ever. It was a whole new experience for me. We gave it our all, and I learned so much from him. But he was superior, and his condition was just phenomenal.

“I did have some  moments and hurt him. There were times when I thought, what have I got to hit this guy with. But he was a little more experienced, and I needed a bit more.

“When I fought him, I didn’t know about going away from punches the way he did, and as much as he did about counter punching and about taking control. But I learned.”

Salvador was so impressed by Juan’s ring performance, that he went to his changing room to congratulate him, and predicted he would be the next Featherweight Champion.

His words were sadly prophetic, because he died in a car crash on August 12th 1982 and Juan stopped Mario Miranda in ten rounds on September 15th to win the vacant title.

Juan recalls: “Yes we spoke, and he said it was one tough fight and it could have gone either way. And he told me I would be a champion.

“And do you know, he blessed me with that. Tragically as soon as I signed the contract for the re-match with him, that was the same day he died. It hurt me so much!”

Juan too ranked Salvador as the all time number one Mexican fighter for “So many reasons.”  And his enduring message to Sal is:

 “Please keep your eye on me, because I almost went the same way, in a motorcycle accident. I was lucky and I was blessed, so somebody is looking after me.”

Sunday will see a special trip to Salvador’s tomb in his home town of Santiago Tianguistenco, in the State of Mexico.