Ringside Report Looks Back at Former World Title Challenger Johnny De La Rosa

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By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Over the last year or so, my good friend & the CEO/Publisher of Ringside Report “The Heart of Boxing & Entertainment”, “Bad” Brad Berkwitt has sent me a number of yesteryear fighters that I should take a look at. Mixed with my own love of both history and British based fighters this gives me a really interesting week as I search and find some information to back up the memory banks.

There are what we would call lightbulb moments when I think, oh yeah I remember when… Then there are the elusive fighters that are stuck in the dark and waiting to be both discovered and given the light of our honor and the opportunity to shine.

Rather than finding these fighters frustrating, because there aint a lot of material out there on them, it makes you even more determined. Fighters fight, they train hard and risk their lives by getting in a ring. We should always be very respectful of them and the opportunity to bring them out of those shadows and into the Ringside Report website is just too good to miss…

This week I have been looking – or trying to look – at former featherweight contender, Johnny De La Rosa, 38-7, 23 KO’s, the Dominican Dynamo.

De La Rosa was active 1980 – 1996 and you struggle to find much about him on the web.

There is nothing out there about his amateur pedigree but there is certainly a few out there who saw his WBC featherweight fight against Juan Laporte and feel aggrieved at what happened!

Before getting there, he began his professional journey in 1980 with 7 fights in South America where even Boxrec struggle to find the details; it is believed that 4 of those wins were by way of knockout.

Moving to the States he began to get noticed stateside. The fact that he stopped Eddie Richardson in the 2nd round would not have gone unnoticed either in his first fight on American soil.

But we all know that new kids gotta prove themselves so he did just that.

Beating what was put in front of him saw another 9 wins – 8 by way of stoppage or knockout. He did “suffer” a split decision win in 1982 when he fought Hector Cortez but other than that the 9 stateside fights were clearly enhancing his reputation.
By late 1982 and he is 4 fights away from that fateful world title fight.

All 4 happened in Miami and all went the same way – Carlos Amaya stopped in the 4th, Ricky Wallace beaten on points whilst a 1st round knockout of William Whipple, and JoJo Virgil was stopped in the 8th.

It was a very busy end to 1982 and set up the WBC title fight against Juan Laporte on the 25th June 1983 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Judges at ringside that night were Harry Gibbs, John Coyle and James Jen Kin. Only Jen Kin gave the fight to De La Rosa. The other two sank their score cards into the heart of De La Rosa and denied him the victory.

The featherweight division at the time was red hot. We had the likes of Eusebio Pedroza and the finesse of Azumah Nelson. it was a time of much expectation and could have been riches for De La Rosa had he won.

Laporte was the defending champion, having won the belt in September 1982 and this was to be his second defense – it was to be an eventful one.

That June night in Puerto Rico, the rangy De La Rosa managed on most people’s score cards to swing into an early lead. By the 6th round, many had it 5-1 for the challenger. De La Rosa fought like it was he who was defending, making Laporte miss and frustrating him. It made the assembled crowd believe that their champion was losing their championship.

The next few rounds saw Laporte wake up to that possibility and start to get back into the contest. De La Rosa, significantly given the score cards, was docked a point in the middle rounds – there was no warning – leaving Laporte with less of a hill to climb.
By the end of the 9th though it was still De La Rosa’s fight.

The last 3 rounds could have been scored even with each doing enough to win one and the other being very close to call. It is certainly true that Laporte thundered through De La Rosa on occasion and clearly rocked him – especially in the 10th – but De La Rosa was surely far enough ahead to make that less important?

Clearly not.

It was the champion’s hand that was raised at the end of the fight. The work done from around round 7 onwards was enough to convince those with the score cards that the champion had got the decision – one of scorecards gave it by one point to the champ – that deduction was heart breaking.

It was harsh and though it pales into insignificance against some of the bigger robberies in boxing, De La Rosa was not just unlucky to lose.

1983 saw him out one more time winning back in Miami. In 1984 he was undefeated – twice – but in 1985 came loss number 2 – against Antonio Esparragoza. It must have been difficult, but he did manage to get back to world level – in 1987 he fought for the IBF title after 9 further wins on his record.

On the 25th October 1987, in Tucson he took on Rocky Lockridge, long before Lockridge became the tragic figure of recent years, losing by stoppage in the 10th round.

From there on he managed to get in the ring a further 9 times from 1988 until retirement in 1996. There were a further 5 wins but 4 losses to add to his total fight score. It makes his record look less impressive than it ought as he was more than a mere contender. He was a specialist who certainly earned the nickname, the “Dominican Dynamo” the hard way!

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