Yaqui Lopez: A Fighter Boxing Needs Today – Boxing News

Exclusive Interview by “Bad” Brad Berkwitt (Copyrighted Boxing Interviews Of A Lifetime 2002)

Before I get into this interview, I want to tell you how, an interview that has eluded me for quite some time, came to be. Back in November 2000, I did an interview for the boxing website www.fightnews.com with former IBF Super Middleweight Champion Murray Sutherland who campaigned as Light Heavyweight before he dropped down to Super Middleweight. In that interview, I mentioned that Yaqui Lopez was also a boxer from Murray’s era who always came to fight, and if anyone had contact with Lopez, it would be honor for me to do an interview with him.

Fast Forward——June 2001, I receive an email from a wonderful young lady who read the Murray Sutherland interview when she found it by searching the internet when she typed in Yaqui’s name, which pulled up my interview with Sutherland. She was doing this for a tenth grade project she was working on. Well, that project happened to be on her Uncle who turned out to be Alvaro “Yaqui” Lopez. The young lady turned out to be Ashley Lopez, Yaqui’s very sweet niece.

I TRULY LOVE THE POWER OF THE INTERNET!!!!!!!

The Alvaro “Yaqui” Lopez story is a fascinating one which starts with his birth under a bull ring in the Plaza deToros San Pedro in Zacatecas, Mexico. He was raised for 14 years underneath the seats in an adobe garage of a famous Bullring in Zacatecas.

Young Lopez had dreams of becoming a Matador, but those dreams were shattered when in his teens, he got a shot at fighting a bull. After about four or five passes, the bull drove his horn into his ankle which shattered it. With that shattered ankle came shattered dreams of becoming a bullfighter.

Lopez always continued to dream about bigger and better things. Dreams turned to reality many years later when he met his soon to be father-in-law and manager, Jack Cruz. Cruz would take a young Lopez on a journey into boxing that few boxers ever will have a chance to experience.

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