Mentor of the Mighty Mites

To the crowd of 14,313 in the Los Angeles Forum last week, it was largely his ripping punches that helped Mexico's Jose Napoles retain his welterweight title with a 15-round decision over Detroit's Hedgemon Lewis. To Kid Rapidez, Napoles' trainer, the secret weapon was "the great power up there." Rapidez, a disciple of the voodoo-like Santero religion, believes in a good rite as much as in a good left. When one of his stable of 80 boxers fights an important match in Mexico City, the Kid dons a red kerchief, a string of Shango beads and pours cologne at the fighter's feet while conga drummers beat out a petition to the gods. A live chicken is always brought into the dressing room before the fight. Was there a fowl in the Forum? Rapidez, certain that Yankees will not understand, only gazes heavenward. But a friend is less reticent. "You can bet there was a chicken somewhere in the Forum that night," he says. "Maybe not in the dressing room, but somewhere."

There were certainly no chickens in the ring. Napoles, who is called "Man-tequilla" because his style is "smooth as butter," owns the best knockout record (47 in 69 bouts) in welterweight history. He and Lewis shared the bill with World Bantamweight Champion Ruben ("Mister K.O.") Olivares and Jesus ("Little Poison") Pimentel, who staged a fast and furious slugfest before Olivares beat Pimentel into submission in the tenth round, scoring his 63rd knockout in 69 fights. Both men are typical of the host of hungry little fighters, most of them from Latin America and Asia, who are restoring some of the lost excitement to boxing from the bottom up. Says one Los Angeles fan of the mighty mites: "The little guys fight like thoroughbreds, while the big guys plod along like trotters."

Kid Rapidez, one of the most sought-after trainers in Latin America, knows all about thoroughbreds. Born Alfredo Cruz in Matanzas, Cuba, he quit school in the third grade and at age 13 went to Havana, where his quick hands won him the name Kid Rapidez and the Cuban flyweight title. After losing only eight of nearly 200 fights, the Kid retired and became a trainer at Havana's National Academy of Boxing. There he groomed such classy fighters as former Welterweight Champions Luis Rodriguez and the late Benny ("Kid") Paret. When Fidel Castro banned professional sports in Cuba, Rapidez moved to Mexico City in 1960 and married one of the country's few lady matadors. There he developed Ultiminio ("Sugar") Ramos into the world featherweight champion in 1963. Six years later, he guided Napoles to the welterweight crown.

"I'm Your Brother." Napoles and Ramos, who were Rapidez students in Cuba and followed their mentor to Mexico City, recall that the Kid's instruction did not end in the ring. Stopping one of his charges in the street, Rapidez would pick out another boy twice his size and say: "I'll give you a peso if you can knock him out. I mean cold." Napoles figures that he won 20 cold pesos that way. Ramos was less fortunate. Son of a police sergeant who sired 53 children, he remembers: "Every time I got ready to punch a kid, the kid would say, 'You can't hit me. I'm your brother.' "

These days Rapidez confines his lessons to the boxing school that he built with his own hands on the outskirts of Mexico City. Drawing hopefuls from Mexico, the Caribbean and as far away as the Zaire Republic, he has built up a stable that includes the 1968 Olympic flyweight champion and no less than seven Mexican Golden Gloves champions. He foresees the day when his fighters--with the help of the Rapidez rituals--will dominate all of the lower-weight classes. "Yes, I have some superstitions," he says, "but I believe in God and the Catholic saints." And a chicken in every dressing room.

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