By Ted Sares: Do the right thing. —Ossie Davis
Record: “Little Red” went 42–6 with 39 KO’s and a KO percentage of 81%, which is highly impressive given the level of his opposition.
Style: Soft-spoken and humble, he was ferocious and unrelenting once the bell rang. In an era in which fights were regularly seen free on non-cable television, he was one of the greatest of the television fighters and his name guaranteed big ratings.. Danny was a high volume puncher who worked hard to set up his knockout blows. His fights often turned into melodramas in which he overcame knock-downs, severe punishment, and adversity to score sudden and spectacular
knockouts. In this regard, he was like Matthew Saad Muhammad and then later, Carl “The Cat” Thompson.
He would get off the canvas and roar back. Turning predator, he would hunt down and take out his opponent in savage fashion. He was heavyhanded and if he connected flush, it usually spelled big trouble for his opponents. He won his first 21 fights by stoppage. His 1972 win over undefeated Arturo Pineda was typically violent and short. The fight filled the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, and featured three rounds of excitement and violence before
Lopez won by KO in the fourth to tally a dramatic victory.
A 1973 brawl against Japan’s Kenji Endo showcased his excellent recuperative powers. Danny was decked and hurt by a hard right in the opening round. He rallied from this near disaster to floor Endo just before the bell. In the second round, he scored three more knockdowns to notch another thrilling win marked by rapidly changing fortunes. Japan’s Genzo Kuresawa became the first man to take him the distance in early 1974.
Against the equally popular Bobby Chacon, (23-1 coming in), and before over 16, 00 fans at the Sports Arena in LA on May 23, 1974, Little Red, (23-0 at the time), would lose his first fight. The dangerous and more talented Chacon, always tough inside, prevailed on this night. Danny was just 21 and had yet to reach maturity. He needed to come in at a heavier weight; he needed to be stronger. He improved and became a World Champion just two years later.
After knocking out Chucho Castillo, Ruben Olivares, and Sean O’Grady (all champions at one time or another), He met David Kotey, 33-2-1, and captured the WBC World Featherweight Title in 15 rounds in 1976 before more than 100,000 screaming Kotey fans in the Sports Stadium in Accra, Kaneshie, Ghana, a remarkable feat. He KO’d Kotey in a rematch. Here is what great friend and fellow writer Mike Casey had to say about Danny’s win over Kotey in a 2007 article entitled, CLIMATE OF HUNTER: WHEN DANNY (LITTLE RED) LOPEZ CONQUERED DAVID KOTEI IN AFRICA:
“It was past midnight at the Accra Sports Stadium in Ghana, yet the temperature was still well into the eighties. A pulsating record crowd of more than 100,000 people only served to stoke the shimmering furnace. Tribal drums boomed and the people cheered as they waited for the arrival of their hero, WBC featherweight champion David ‘Poison’ Kotei…. “But Lopez was one of those exceptional men who could win wherever the plane set him down… Kotei launched a final flurry in the fifteenth, one last hurrah as his crown slipped from his head. It spoke volumes for his fortitude that he was still willing to trade punches with a man who specialised in toe-to-toe warfare. But the champion’s final fling could not match the power of Danny’s grandstand drive to the finish line. There were moments in those last minutes of battle when Kotei looked set to crumble in the face of the Lopez offensive, but the plucky champion survived to hear the final bell. “The decision for Lopez was unanimous and the stunned thousands in the Accra Sports Stadium were downcast over the sad fall of their hero. But Africa is awarrior nation and the new chieftain was saluted accordingly.”
Danny Lopez made work on Friday go by faster knowing you would see him fight on television on Saturday.
Lopez went on to make 8 successful title defenses as one of the most popular fighters of the 70’s. In 1979, he fought in a Ring Magazine Fight of the Year against Mike Ayala winning by a dramatic 15th round knockout. Then, following thrilling back-to-back stoppage losses to the great Salvador Sanchez, he retired in 1980.
As Lee Groves states in a supertb article on Everlast.com, “Little Red.… was boxing’s ultimate thrill ride, a television fighter’s television fighter whose bouts stirred the passions of red-blooded boxing fans everywhere…when Danny Lopez fought, you knew what you were going to get…You were going to get excitement and that’s the way boxing is supposed to be. Lopez was willing to walk through any amount of punishment to get the job done because he had unwavering faith in his ability. More often than not, that faith was justified – all he had to do was look down at his fallen opponents for evidence.”
Danny’s legacy with aficionados is secure. He is a member of the World Boxing Hall of Fame and was inducted into the California boxing Hall of Fame in 2005. But he is not in the International Boxing Hall of Fame and that is manifestly wrong. This is not about comparing this warrior who stirred the passions of boxing fans wherever he fought to others who have been inducted. No, this is about Danny Lopez making it on his own merits with no hesitation.
Watching Little Red fight reinforced my affinity for warriors of the 1950s and 1960s. He bridged the gap into a new era of fighting. If Saad was Gatti before Gatti, Lopez was Saad before Saad.